


The enemy of my enemy

by Epselion



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Genocide, Non-Canonical Violence, Psychological Trauma, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:02:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epselion/pseuds/Epselion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Chitauri must die if Loki ever wants to be free from them again. But who can he count on to help him build the weapon to destroy them? Family? His knowledge? Or perhaps an enemy from the past? Sequel to Mending Broken bonds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A matter of importance

Chapter 1: A matter of importance.

 

As the doors to the throne-room opened it broke the heavy silence inside. Odin’s eye immediately focused on his wife as she approached. He was quite keen to hear her news, the way Thor had come in to retrieve her had been quite panicked. Something had been severely wrong. From the way his shining queen was also pale he figured that it was as bad as Thor had made appear. He wished to be let onto this. 

“My love…” he spoke when she grabbed his hand, fingers trembling. “Speak to me about what has become of Thor’s urgent matter.”

She inclined her head and stood tall, straightening her back.

“It has been taken care of. It was about Loki…” she paused to think on how to continue this explanation.

“Is our son in good health?” he asked worried.

She shook her head silently.

“It’s better now. The Chitauri have attacked him. The wounds were rather vicious and deep.”

Fregga paled at the thoughts of it again.

“He was attacked? Here in Asgard? Right under our noses?” Odin hissed lowly, his anger hardly contained, the guts of these creatures. “How has Heimdall not seen? How come not a guard has noticed, or my ravens told me?” he stood. “Where are these culprits?”

Fregga looked at her sleeve, the edge of it was stained red. She folded it under her hand, out of sight, out of mind.

“Thousands of light-years away from here, somewhere in the branches of Yggdrasil. No man has seen because they were never here. They practice dark magic, they took Loki’s soul, not his body. But his wounds are real my love, the blood was real, and the pain was very much real too.”

Red seeped into Odin’s cheeks, he was infuriated. Not a man had the right to hurt his son, nor did a single monster. They would regret this, so he swore.

“For what? For being defeated on Midgard? Do they know no end?” 

Fregga looked tired, shaken. It made his face harden even more, that meant it had been quite severe. He had only seen her like this when Loki had been shot with that arrow ages ago, so drained. This meant war, wherever they were hiding they would be crushed by Asgard.

“No, it is not. Loki has tried to explain… but I think he should do so himself to you as well. I understand little of this all.”

“Is he in shape for such a thing?”

“He insisted.”

Fregga gestured to the guards to let their sons in as well. Thor walked in, but the usual strength and cheerfulness had left him for the moment. He was as pale and shaken as his mother was, evidence of cleaning away blood was still everywhere, a crisp clean tunic, and cleaner hands than Thor ever had. But still there was copper red under his nails. He acknowledged his father with a nod and Odin greeted him back. Not as a king, this was family business. Loki trailed behind, his gaze on the floor to keep his focus. He looked sick and scared, and the way he walked told Odin he was still quite far from alright, the slight wobble in his moves, being unable to walk in pretty much a straight line. Thor noticed too and waited him up, holding his shoulder to walk the last bit. Odin immediately noticed the area that had been attacked. His arm was bulged under the sleeve of his left arm, a bandage from shoulder to elbow. A warning injury, painful but unrestricting enough to get something done. They had been demanding. Loki gave his father a quick nod.

“Father.”

He looked bad, his eyes still hollow and his features still skinny from staying on Jotunheim for that long a time. But at least he was now getting better. Close of the palace made up for a lot, he had gotten a glimpse of what he had come here in. But his pride was still quite shattered, it could be read from his stance, tired and timid, so unlike the son he had raised. Loki flinched and looked away, mistaking his father’s worried look-over for a judging one. Odin softened his face and instead smiled to his family. 

“It’s good to see both my sons again with the same eye. It makes a father happy to know that all is forgiven.”

“All is not forgiven!” Loki’s voice was suddenly very loud.

That was still quite a sore subject then. Loki sighed and proceeded with a more calmed voice.

“There’s just a lot to forget…. And I have not forgotten all of it.”

Thor’s shoulders slumped a bit, clearly disappointed.

“But these past few days we were so well. I thought we were brothers again…”

Loki chewed on his lip.

“I told you it would need time. We spent ages wherein I really resented you. I can’t just throw that past out and pretend it never existed. I’ve been home for only three days, and there’s a lot I had to deal with already.” He didn’t know why he felt like he had to defend this. Three days was nothing compared to centuries, Thor could maybe make such an easy turn, but he sure could not.

“At least I am willing to work it out… That should be enough.”

Thor nodded slowly. A silence fell and Odin suddenly regretted saying such a thing. Fregga eventually took up the task of breaking the silence.

“You and Thor can work out whatever in your own ways, why don’t you tell father what you came for.” She knew Loki was stalling from it on purpose. Loki plucked on the edges of his vest.

“I need your help, to build another Tesseract.”

The statement was clear, a single line that asked for many explanations. But Loki did not elaborate. Just the one statement, not even a question. Like he had made up his mind, calculated that Odin had to jump in, it was only his call to grant that help or not.

“Do you even know what you ask boy?”

He sat back on the throne again, contemplating what this would be about.

“I’m not asking.”

“Why would you even want another Tesseract? If you need it for whatever shady reason, why not use the actual Tesseract?”

“Not me, the Chitauri. They want the Tesseract. They will not relent in their persuasions until I bring it to them. It’s why I could so suddenly be reunited with all of you. I am to retrieve it from Asgard.” He looked at Odin more intently. “You of all have seen what they can do, not doing so is simply not an option. They will not stop.”

His son’s hand moved to touch his elbow subconsciously.

“If we do nothing, they will have it.”

Odin listened, things made a little more sense now, if only just a little. Something had to be done, he agreed. And Loki had a plan, he never acted if he had no plan. He just could not see it yet.

“If we give them a weapon like the Tesseract, even if it is only a copy… The damage they will do is not to be overseen. Realms will fall, even our own actual Tesseract might not protect us. Such a risk cannot be taken.”

“That’s why I’m not taking it.” Loki answered. “We need to build a copy because it needs to be able to do something the real one cannot.”

Odin furrowed his brow.

“And what would that be?”

“Self-destruct.”

And suddenly Odin got the picture. Loki wanted to destroy them by bringing them their gift, laced with a parting gift. 

“It will wipe them out, every last one of them. Only then will they leave me alone.” 

Odin shook his head.

“And how did you wish to accomplish this? The Tesseract is ancient magic. Older than even the fundaments of Asgard itself. Made by the first Jotun sorcerers. They were the strongest our Realms have known, no mage since could even hope to become as strong as one. The Jotun haven’t had a mage since.”

“I am a jotun mage.” Loki stated, crossing his arms. “I have read of their mages. The ringed moon of Jotunheim has an effect on a pregnant jotun, it drenches the baby she carries in its radiation. The longer it remains exposed to the ringed moon the smaller it is upon birth. But the radiation is what makes a jotun capable of magic.” 

He looked at his own fingers. 

“The first mages, they were about my size. Which means that I too can accomplish this, but I need help. The ringed moon stood close to the realm of frost giants before I was born. I can summon these spells if only I knew how.”

“I cannot help you. The legends may still live, but the nature magic of the jotun is long forgotten. The frost giants do not know them anymore, nor does any creature alive.”

Loki felt his stomach coil.

“There has to be a record! There has to be! How else could they have told their kin of their magic! It cannot be gone!” 

Because if it was then there was no hope left. No Tesseract, no bomb, no release. 

“Think boy! The jotun murder all runts of their people, they care not for mages. Magic takes too long to develop it has no use to the frost giants. Why else would they kill them all? There is no legacy, no record, only the Tesseract.”

And yes, that made sense, but if Loki admitted it true to himself then, what would his future be? Blood, pain, insanity. Thor knew he didn’t have too much wit to rely on but this he was pretty certain about, so he spoke up.

“I know of people that already have reproduced parts of the Tesseract. They never made a second cube, but the essence they managed to copy.”

Loki turned to his brother, hopeful. Odin snorted, he couldn’t really believe anybody would be able to outdo Asgard in its capabilities.

“Allies of ours?” Loki asked, desperate for at least a hold-on.

“Yes brother… The humans have.”

Loki’s face dropped.

“The mortals? Your Midgardian friends?”

Thor nodded, he didn’t really see the problem, this was great news was it not?

“There was a moment on that ship of the people with shields. They were arguing because there were weapons being made with the power of the Tesseract. Clearly that had not been shared with the rest. They wanted to use at as a power-source. They can help!”

“People with shields?” Loki repeated.

“Yes, the men in those fancy black suits who actually do not carry any shields… Mystifying…”

Loki shook his head.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. is an abbreviation. The name of their department.” He really did not like his chances here. “But you say they had made copies, and that they had made weapons of it?”

“Yes, or… maybe. They just managed to extract energy from the Tesseract for these weapons. But the effect was very impressive according to the Captain. He said that one man had once done this. He said it had been a horrible slaughter, men vaporized into non-existence.”

Loki nodded slowly, it sounded like it could work if he were to be included to look at things with the Asgardian knowledge. If only they weren’t talking about the humans here, anyone else he could have probably swayed the right way.

“Brother, they will give us a hand with this if I were to ask them to. The Avengers are my friends. They trust me.”

“That would not happen in a million years! The Avengers are YOUR friends, they are MY enemies. Or at least I’m theirs. Possibly the worst they have. They would not help me. Nor would they trust you about me, because I’m a trickster and could have manipulated you.”

He groaned. Did he have actual other chances? Not really.

Thor shook his head.

“Man of Iron likes you. He said so himself. That you were his favourite enemy, for he hadn’t ever met one so much like him.”

Loki glared at his brother.

“I threw the man out of his window to die. Which would have worked if it weren’t for that damned suit. He does not ‘like’ me. Thor, none of them do. I am a threat, they will not assist me in building a weapon for mass-destruction.”

It fell silent again around them. Loki’s head tried to tell him things that would avoid having to call in the humans. If he looked hard enough he could maybe find back the old spells, maybe they were still somewhere on Jotunheim. With Thor on his side he could travel through the wastelands rather safely. Maybe others had just failed to see it. But how long would it take to find it? He only had a month, and then of course, he still had to make it. Casting so many spells in one month… His mother told him what he actually already knew.

“I think the Midgardians are your only hope Loki…”

He knew that, but he hated confirming it. He nodded slowly.

“Come on brother, you are smart with your words. I’m sure you can talk your way into their trust.”

“I’m pretty sure they won’t let me.” he countered.

“We have a common enemy, we will fight like allies against them, the humans would benefit from it too.”

Loki started to weigh the possibilities in his mind. The clear advantage was of course the much more secure chance to build this Tesseract. The disadvantage, that he was not allowed to stay at Thor’s side this time, that he could be killed by them. But those things seemed unlikely with Thor around. He would not let it get that far right? He grunted. 

“Fine, but if they kill me know that it’s on you.”

Thor smirked victoriously.

“I think we all know by now that nothing can kill you brother…”

“Don’t challenge fate Thor.”

Loki looked, softly said, not amused at all. This weighed heavy on him. Thor knew he hated calculating in risks. He knew how his little brother liked an airtight plan that could only work out how he wanted. After all, look where previous risks had brought him so far. 

“Man of iron did still owe you a drink is that not so?”

Loki sighed.

“Yes, but I still owe him half a tower… If we’re going to think in debts.”

“Not so sour brother. The humans have a saying on earth. It applies perfectly. It states; the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Is that not perfect?”

“It’s nonsense.” Loki fired back. “Why would having an enemy in common make people friends?”

“Because it takes proper teamwork to defeat a common enemy, you cannot do so when there is hate within your ranks.” Thor knew Loki was just looking for bad things now.

“Fine, fine… I’m not even going to try and talk this through with you.”

He waved Thor away. He looked at Fregga and his brother.

“I would like to speak to father alone for a moment…” 

They understood and left, the doors again letting out a mighty groan as they were shut behind them.

“If you are not helping on the creation of my plan I do have yet another favour to ask of you father.”

Odin sat up straight again. He had not meddled with Thor’s proposition, had let Loki deal with the risks. This was for once, not his deal. The Chitauri were not from the Nine Realms. They were not accountable for Asgard’s laws. They were rogue. But if Loki would ask his alliance he would see what he could do.

“I will have to put a lot of magic in this work still, to help the humans make this. I need you to keep us shrouded. Me and Thor. They cannot see what I am doing, they have no strength for that. But they can locate me. If they know I’m on Midgard, or Thor, there will be suspicions.”

“You want me to mislead them? To make it as if you never left this place?” 

Loki nodded. His father understood what was important. 

“Especially for Thor… If he gets tangled up in what I have felt I would not forgive myself.” 

He turned away to leave. Odin smiled at that. Loki did care for his brother still. That made him happy. Proud. 

“I will do as you ask boy. But there is now something I will ask of you as well. I know you are short on time. So you may go tomorrow morning when dawn breaks. I do however demand then, that tonight you will celebrate your return to our family and claim that place back in front of all of Asgard.”

Loki stopped, his back still turned on his father as he let out a heavy sigh. No, no, no… he didn’t want that. But he knew finality in his father’s voice when he heard it.

“Is it not enough to be received hostile once? I must endure it here first, and then I can move on to Midgard to go through exactly the same?”

“The people of Asgard will be glad to see you return.”

Loki turned around. 

“Are you really that blind? We both know they would rather have my head, of Thor I understand such ignorance, but of you…”

“It is your duty as a prince, to reclaim your place, it will only be acknowledged if the people get to see it for themselves.”

 Odin could see the denial playing in Loki’s head over and over. There had been quite a few days that he had been unable to read his own son. But this was just about screaming from him. 

“And they will be happy if I tell them to be.”

Loki smiled faintly before his face went back to that slightly desperate, defeated look again.

“Fine, I’ll attend. But do not expect of me to linger long. An hour, no more.”

“An hour will suffice.” Odin agreed, willing to make that compromise.

Loki gave him a curt nod and strode away. His arm was starting to pulse again. He would need to rest it. He just needed a moment of peace and quiet. Tonight all hell would break loose, he was fairly sure that something would happen. How could he expect things to go smoothly? He knew how the people of Asgard were. He saw Thor and tried to pass by unnoticed.

“Brother! Can we have a small word?”

Attempt failed… He sighed and turned, his smile a little forced.

“If we must…”

“Come brother, it will not be so bad!” Thor was cheerful, happy apparently that he was for once the person that had solved the problem at hand. 

He patted Loki’s shoulder before remembering that was his bad shoulder.

“Sorry, my bad…”

Loki only rubbed the sore away and followed after his brother.

“I was planning on doing some work for myself Thor…” he tried.

“That’s fine, we will just talk in your room then.”

Failed again. Thor sucked at hints sometimes. He let his brother into his room and put away the bloody towel at his bedside. The sheets had already gone. Probably taken away by his mother or the handmaidens. Thor fell down on his bed with a sigh. 

“I do hope you are not angry with me… For suggesting the humans.” 

Loki shook his head. He wasn’t, he was just bummed that it was the actual truth like this.

“What will we need? To build the Tesseract I mean.” 

“My cube, some spellbooks, maybe some standard potions that the Midgardians do not have.” 

His sentences were short and to the point. His mind really wasn’t thinking on Thor’s words. He had more important things to think of.

“It will be fine brother… They will listen to me, believe me.”

“They better.” Loki huffed. “If they don’t… Then we kissed goodbye our only chances. Father is right. There is no record. If nobody ever found it in all these ages… It’s probably not there anymore, or never was. If your humans refuse help, then the Chitauri will push me long enough to bring them the real Tesseract… And only the Norns would know what will become of the Realms when they do.”

“Not so gloomy. They will understand. Their Realm will be endangered too.”

“I want to believe that Thor, I really do.” He sagged down on his bed as well, resting both arms on his knees limply. “It’s just that… Everything depends on this. I normally have alternatives, not having those is… horrible… And screwing this one thing up can really make a mess.”

He let himself fall on his back. He couldn’t stand all this doubt. 

“You know, if you just stay the Loki you are now, the one I know from all these ages ago, then nothing can go wrong. I know that for a fact.”

Loki nodded and sat up again to take the cube from his nightstand. 

“This will also still need a lot of work.”

“And you will do it perfectly. You always have, with everything.” 

Loki looked back to see Thor stretch his muscles with a lazy yawn.

“Father demanded to hold a banquet before we leave. He won’t let us go without it.”

Thor could hear from the dark undertone in Loki’s voice that he really wasn’t too happy with that.

“And when do we leave?”

There was plenty of time right?

“Tomorrow.” Loki grabbed a leather bag from his closet and put his spellbooks and the cube init.

Thor suddenly sat up straight.

“Tomorrow? But brother, you need to rest still. And you are injured!”

“There will be a banquet tonight, tomorrow we leave at daybreak.”

He lifted the pillow and grabbed the notebook and a few phials from his desk.

“But, do you not want some time to recover more, your spells will be better when you’re rested, you said so yourself.”

“I don’t have such time. If I had I would take it. And if all goes well on Midgard then I can take upon rest and recovery there too.” He leaned on the desk. “They gave me a month, a month is very short for this much work. That’s why the arm is a real setback.”

Thor followed Loki with his eyes as he walked across the room to pick up little things.

“And what happens if you don’t get it done in time?” he had to ask. 

How bad would it get? Would there be a way around it, buy more time if needed? Loki shrugged.

“Nothing good.” He picked up a book that had fallen behind the bookcase. “Deadline means they want it quickly, which also means they have plans. Which is both good and bad. Good because it means they really need it and that gives leverage in bargaining. Bad because they’ll be on edge and unreasonable when things go wrong. If we happen to be late… I think it won’t just be the arm.” His eyes darkened.

“So we’re in a hurry to keep you in one piece?”

“Me…but you too. Anyone, anyone involved that I care about. I could be the one to hurt you, they can do that.”

“I’m sure man of Iron will listen to my reason. He is a good man when you get to know him.”

“But it won’t go smoothly, you know that.”

“Sunshine.”

“Realist.”

Thor stood up and chuckled.

“You win… That’s what you want to hear?”

“Yes.”

Loki left the bag on his desk and walked over to Thor.

“Now… go to your room, do something about yourself. You’re still unwashed and you are definitely underdressed for one of father’s grand feasts. Besides, I want to get some extra work done, possibly causing another explosion.”

Thor nodded, he had not gotten to wash and brush properly yet, since he’d gotten up so hastily to check on Loki after that first explosion. He had barely even noticed.

“If I did not have you what would become of me?”

“You managed well enough for some three years.”

Thor sighed but smiled as he turned to leave.

“The banquet will also work out just fine.”

“Refrain from brushing your teeth any longer and no man would dare come close.” 

Loki wrinkled his nose. Thor shut his mouth and glared at his little brother.

“Prick.”

Loki grinned and held the door open to let Thor out.

Unwilling to be commented on his personal hygiene again Thor immediately returned to his rooms to do the things he’d skipped this morning. He washed himself, brushed his teeth twice just in case, and when he was about to get his clothes sorted out for the evening there was a knock on the door. He didn’t stop his current objective but turned around to give the other permission to enter shortly. The door creaked softly and the boots of the other sounded hesitant as they shuffled inside. 

“Can we have a word Thor?” Fandral asked when Thor didn’t look up from his pile of trousers.

“Can we?” Thor still very much remembered Fandral’s judgements about Loki. And he wasn’t going to forget about it either.

“I’m sorry about this morning, I truly am. Sif fed us with evil thoughts, she riled us up and that was wrong. I let myself forget that Loki was our friend for centuries, and that you still believe in him tells me you know more about this… I want to understand, but you’ll have to answer my questions Thor. How the hell did he become such a monster? Is it gone now? Is it still there? Is he sick? Insane? Possessed maybe?”

Thor stood up and turned to face Fandral.

“You are serious about this?”

Fandral nodded, the look of guilt could not be faked like that.

“Then answers you may have. But only one question at the time, please.”

“How by the Norns did he come by that tyrant complex? So suddenly.”

Thor sat down on the chair at his own desk, gesturing Fandral to take place somewhere too. 

“Ill judgement. We all chose to be blindsided by what was going on inside his head. Our father had told Loki… shocking… news, and he really had trouble coping with that. And while he tried coping…Father fell into Odinsleep, I was banished. So he was king. You know Loki, when he gets uncertain he needs control, more than usual. And what gives more control than power?” 

Fandral understood the way it had gone. It sounded like the Loki he knew. 

“But this had to have been quite a shocker to go to such extremes… What could possibly be so hard to cope with?”

“You remember Jotunheim?” Loki would kill him for this, he was so keen on nobody knowing.

“Well of course. I got skewered, Volstagg froze like a Popsicle… You had a blast.” Fandral grinned.

Thor’s lips only quirked up quickly, now was not the time for laughs.

“Well, Volstagg burned from a single touch. But what Loki never said that he got grabbed too. Only, his skin did not burn. It became blue, like a frost-giant’s would. When he went searching for answers he used their casket. Until confronting our father about it when he really could not figure it out anymore.”

Fandral took it in. 

“So… did he figure it out then? Did the Allfather know?”

Thor nodded, reluctant to just put it out there and tell Fandral a secret he had promised Loki to keep.

“Our father decided to tell Loki the truth. He was adopted, from Jotunheim.”

Fandral’s mouth just fell open with shock. 

“He is a Jotun?”

Thor looked away, out the window, radiating silent excuses in his head to Loki.

“Yes. Father found him at the end of last war. He had been abandoned for being small as he is. Too small for their standards.”

“By the Norns, your little brother, is a frost giant runt?”

“Don’t call him that!”

Fandral raised his hands in defence.

“I meant nothing bad with that… Just, a not so giant frost giant then. Do you even know… was he a peasant or…?” he shrugged.

“The first son of Laufey.”

This was so hard to do, he couldn’t have imagined how hard this would weigh on him.

“Son of… son of Laufey? Like, king of the frost giants Laufey?” 

Thor nodded.

“The one Loki killed with his own hands? Did he even… know then?”

Thor nodded again. Fandral sat baffled. 

“First son… That means he is in fact king to Jotunheim now that Laufey is dead… At least the legal heir.”

“He wishes no part of that. Knowing completely turned his world upside-down. He just wanted to prove to father that he could be better than the monsters, that he had no ties to them, therefore he wanted to destroy them, make it as if they had never been there. That he was not like the monsters in the children’s stories.”

Fandral felt so enlightened now.

“The stories… Of course the stories, to grow up thinking frost giants are the worst things to ever meet. And then…”

“Exactly.” Thor said gravely.

Fandral stayed where he sat. Trying to give all this new information a place in his head. It stayed silent for minutes. Fandral just soaking in, making ties. 

“I am sorry, but there are things I must do.” Thor eventually urged.

Fandral snapped out of his thoughts and looked up at Thor.

“No, of course… It’s just…” he put a hand on Thor’s shoulder. “Thank you for telling me this. This makes so many things so much clearer.”

Thor smiled faintly.

“If you happen to come across Loki, keep this to yourself. He wishes for nobody to know this about him. I promised him.”

The slighter warrior nodded and opened the door.

“I’ll speak with you later… The both of you.”

Thor waved at him and didn’t answer, knowing that there would be no time for that anyway. The doors fell shut again and Thor packed his own few things. It wasn’t much, just the clothes he had borrowed from Jane on earth and one of their standard arc-bows, to sway Tony the right way, a bit of bribing would never hurt. He smiled faintly at the thought before his face became grim again. He could not forget Loki’s face from this morning. As he lay there hunched over, fighting of the Chitauri. Those eyes, so frightened, he had known he would be hurting, he had looked so… petrified. And there had been nothing he could do. And yet it still felt like he had not done enough.

“I’m so sorry brother…”

The memory was haunting.

“I’m so sorry…”

 


	2. An unfortunate turn of events...

Chapter 2: An unfortunate turn of events…

 

While Loki waited in the backrooms behind the dining-hall he did not know whether to run or stay. He felt so small, his legs so heavy. He vaguely wondered if Thor had felt like he did, on the day of his coronation. Although Thor’s occasion had been so joyful, his only terrifying. The fires softly crackled in their places, the flames casting shadows that moved over the walls. His hands were sweaty and he kept wiping them on the sides of his tunic. It was constant, almost subconscious while his mind just raced and raced on. There were so many things that could possibly happen as those doors opened, but in his mind he could only see the bad ones, from riots to a slaughter, and it did not quite calm his nerves, it rather did the opposite. He’d dressed differently for this, purely for extra safety. He’d grabbed his old armour, from when Thor would’ve been crowned. It offered some safety, made him feel more secure, if only a slight bit. 

“Brother…” Thor greeted Loki carefully, he hadn’t looked so high-strung in ages. Even though he was clothed Thor could see how tense his back was. And when he came at his side he could read it even more from Loki’s face.

“You look as if you were awaiting your trial rather than a feast to celebrate you.” 

Loki turned his face, his eyes wide and the smile he tried to cast to Thor quivered.

“I am still quite sure that the people will decide to make it a trial.” 

The leather straps under his armour were pried loose from all his fidgeting. 

“You ought to calm Loki, you are making even me nervous.”

Loki didn’t really react, he just stilled his hands and looked at the floor.

“I used to be so much better than this…” he said. “I could be dying inside and no man would see.”

“Well, you are much like what I felt inside that day…”

Thor did not need to name what day.

“I was terrified as much as you are. I for one am kind of happy you are not so closed off to others anymore.”

Loki nodded.

“I knew you were nervous on that day, you told me a thousand times that you were not.”

“I was scared like a child, I had simply thrown a horrible tantrum in my room and destroyed some training dummies out in the rings… It helped. You should find a way to let go of this tension, you are as firm as a rock.” He squeezed his brother’s shoulder.

“Throwing a tantrum, how very like you.”

He snickered, small talk took his mind of things.

“But yes, I was still very nervous when I stood here, for when those doors would open, my life would change. Nothing would ever be the same and that made me very scared.”

“Mine changed… None of this feels familiar.” Loki admitted. “The halls, my room, these clothes. It’s as if I live an illusion I created for myself, like I got lost in it, forgot that it was only an illusion. But yet there is part of me that knows it’s not.”

“This is real Loki, you’re home. And after the Chitauri are dealt with you will never leave it again.”

Thor grabbed a cup of ale and handed it to his brother.

“I think that in fact, you could use a little less real at the moment.”

Loki smiled faintly and took the cup, his fingers grabbing it much tighter than needed. 

“It is nice though, being home, with all of you once again. But such fortune often comes with its counters. I just hope that tonight will not hold one of those.”

“Brother, you have had enough bad things come over you, this is the first good matter in years, it should not need its consideration.”

He patted Loki’s back. 

“We should not linger, Volstagg would finish every plate before long. And gods I’m hungry.” 

Loki put the cup away, he didn’t wish for his senses to be dulled at this night. Thor could tell him a thousand times that all would be well but it would not convince him. Thor wasn’t exactly unbiased. He gave Thor a nod. He would have to go through it either way. He was just happy that he could have Thor at his side this time. The doors opened and the golden light of the throne room flooded in, leaving the backrooms bathing in its glow. There were so many people… hundreds. Loki froze in place. Thor gently nudged his side. 

“Your eyes might fall out like that brother…” he whispered.

Loki didn’t move a muscle. He was petrified. The blond god noticed and grabbed Loki’s elbow, dragging him with him until Loki started to walk on his own.

“Nobody would dare hurt you. They would have to go through me first.”

“Even you cannot fight of hundreds…”

“Loki don’t.”

“It’s true.” 

Their conversation was nothing but whispers. But the entire crowd had fallen silent, eyes fixed on the both of them, burning almost. Thor guided Loki to the throne, to join their parents. Fregga looked at him questioningly. Asking without a word if he was feeling better. In turn, Loki smiled faintly and gave her a quick nod. 

“You look neat Loki.” 

He grimaced but kept silent. He could not agree really. The hall was now eerily quiet, as if everyone held their breath, not even a cough or a sneeze. Everyone was awaiting an explanation to this sight. The king and queen and BOTH their sons. Odin stood up, looking over the crowd sternly. Everyone could feel this silence was tense, even Thor, even Odin.

“Tonight we feast, to celebrate the return of our youngest prince and our son, Loki of Asgard. His crimes have been forgiven, his wrongs paid for. I expect the people of Asgard to respect this verdict and share it.”

A few mutters started to rise.

“He is now once again your prince, treat him as such or the penalties will be grave.”

To conduct his announcement he pounded Grungir to the ground, sending a deep sound through the halls. For a short moment all eyes remained fixed and then came the discussions. People started talking to each other, gesturing, eating in the meantime. Yet, there was still a tenseness to the people. Fregga and Odin took seat at their usual places near the throne and gave each other a quick look.

“Sit with your friends and enjoy yourselves.” Fregga tried, giving Thor a sharp eye to tell him to drag Loki along.

Thor nodded and grabbed Loki’s elbow again, softly, less urging and protective this time.

“Let us sit with our friends .” he said with a smile.

“Your friends.” 

“Loki…”

“Sif is still rather hell-bent on murdering me.”

“Nonsense little brother. Besides, I am with you. Nothing could overcome you. Sif might be a worthy warrior, but no match for me. Or you.”

He reminded Loki. Of course he had the strength, the capability. That didn’t mean he would wish for it. Needing to fight now, on the very first evening as royalty again, it would be wrong. He stayed silent instead, knowing Thor was just trying to calm his fears. He was trying so very hard so why would he keep spoiling it? He let Thor drag him to his friends, the Warrior’s three and indeed Sif.

“My friends, how very joyous is this occasion? Who would have thought I would have seated my brother beside us again?” 

Sif sure wasn’t. Her knuckles whitened around her cutlery and she was chewing on the inside of her lip so she would not say what exactly she thought of this. Thor pointed Loki to sit beside Fandral, apparently he decided he was the safest companion. Why so was unknown to Loki. But if Thor thought it best he would not meddle. He said down, not speaking a single word to study this delicate situation first. Thor sat next to Hogun. He and Sif both looked, less pleased, to put it kindly. Sif failed most horribly in pretending she felt unaffected, the way she just about murdered her slice of meat was quite evident of her disapproval. Hogun just gave Thor a nod, not a word. He looked stoic as most times, but his eyes were even more narrowed and he kept his eyes cast at Volstagg instead. 

Fandral took up to break the awkward silence.

“We are all happy I’m sure. At least relieved for you. We all have seen how heavy it has weighed on your mind to miss your brother. It has been long since you properly laughed at something.”

Sif gave the blond warrior a glare but looked away. This was not like her, she was better than this. Fandral noticed but instead turned to Loki at his right side.

“Welcome back. Really, welcome back. It is a relief to have you here again. Five made such a dull number at times.” He nudged him with his elbow. “Do you not agree?” 

Loki nodded with a grimace, happy the bandages cushioned Fandral’s elbow. Why he was suddenly so… happy, or elevated Loki could not understand. He had heard him yell at Thor outside his room. Really yell. But now it was as if, he was trying to make up for something. He looked at Thor quickly and the sheepish grin told him enough. Fandral knew. Thor had told him, Fandral knew what he was. He glared at Thor, but couldn’t bring himself to get angry, because Fandral wasn’t disgusted or anything. He looked compassionate. Yes, compassionate would be the word for it. 

“Thank you.” He said to him.

Sif’s nostrils flared with rage about now. He almost wondered if she would maybe hurl her fork at him. But she looked determined not to let it affect her in such a way. Hogun stared at Fandral, he felt betrayed, apparently he was not aware or present when Thor told Fandral about his true nature.

“Come on my friends! Eat!” Volstagg urged, his own plate was stacked as full as he could manage. “Especially you, a draft could blow you away.”

He pointed his chicken leg at Loki. Volstagg was hardest to understand. He was acting as if nothing had ever happened. Like he had missed out on the last few years. As if, he chose that time not to exist. He was smiling broadly and by now he had already finished that chicken leg. Sif stood, her face red, it was too much for her so it seemed.

“I hope you choke on it!” she yelled at Loki.

She stabbed her knife into the table and looked at the others with such accusing eyes that they looked away from her.

“Make sure not to walk to your room alone, for I swear to the Norns I’ll gut you.” 

People fell silent to listen to her. 

“I will slaughter you like Thor slaughtered hundreds of your kind!” 

There was some confused whispering. What ‘kind’ did she speak of? But Loki knew, and this could only go horribly wrong. She knew. Fandral and Thor exchanged a quick look as well, they were also aware of what she was talking about. Sif straightened her back, happy she got the attention.

“Oh yes people of Asgard. This must be his best lie so far. You see, Loki of Asgard. Is not at all of Asgard to begin with. He is not our prince, he is not our people. He is our enemy. Loki was born Laufeyson. But his father did not wish for him because he was nothing but a runt.” She spat her words, looking so triumphant it made Loki feel sick. But this whole situation made him sick.  She walked around the table and looked at Loki’s horrified face.

“Thor told me himself.”

Pleased with the way she had planted that seed of chaos she smirked and strode off, but she would not go far, she would wait, and see what this would bring. It was once again so very quiet. Loki shrunk back a bit, trying to shield himself from those hundreds of burning gazes. Thor almost panicked as Sif accused him. He stood as well.  

“I told her no such thing!” he called out. “Brother, I have not said that to her!”

Loki didn’t say a word before someone else spoke.

“But is it true?” the voice was demanding and sharp.

“Is he not of our blood?”

“Well look at him! We could have known really. The Aesir have golden hair, the Aesir do not practice such trickery and magic.”

Thor felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. This had been what Loki feared for, he had assured him no such thing would happen. He had just about promised. Loki looked at him quickly but then away. He wasn’t angry with Thor, but he was uncomfortable.

“We want the truth! The truth!” the people started yelling.

Thor looked towards his parents for some form of help, but they looked just as incredulous as him. He could see his father boiling with anger, but his mother looked so…. Disappointed. In their people. There were screams that shouted murder or treason, monster. Loki growled and stood up, blue as the Jotun were. His eyes were red and it seemed to enhance the rage behind them.  

“You are all monsters! All of you! Look at yourselves! Why would it matter that I was born in this skin! I grew up as one of you! I never knew! You are twisted and arrogant for thinking you are above the frost giants! You are no better! Pride is a sin too, we are people too and none of you deserve to call yourself a higher people! I might be a frost giant, but I could kill all of you!” 

His skin paled again to his Aesir façade and he ran off. Thor made to follow after him but Fandral held him, shaking his head.

“Let him gather his wits for a moment alone. Later.”

“How can they be so cruel?” Thor asked hurt. 

He looked towards the doors that fell shut behind Loki.

“You were too, once. Would you not slay all the frost giants?”

Thor did not get to answer. Hogun stood up. 

“You are my friend Thor. But this is the last straw.” He grabbed a knife from his belt. “I’m with Sif on this.”

Thor shook his head. This was not happening, it should not be happening. It was not fair to Loki, he had seen enough, this was home!

“We’ll capture him, it’s time that the people get a say in this.”

“The people will kill him!”

“That is not my problem.”

Volstagg put down his food and looked up.

“Loki is our friend!” he said flabbergasted. “He has saved our lives more than once! He fought along our sides. His magic has helped us all. And you decide to go after him now, because… Because he’s blue?”

Hogun ran his thumb over the knife in his hand.

“I’ll try not to hurt him when we go after him. But the house I serve is the house of Odin. Not that of frost giants.”

With that for an explanation he left to catch up with Sif. Thor watched him go. He could not decide if he wanted to pull him back and yell in is face or fight him for this. So he did neither. People started to meddle now as well, standing up and gathering in front of the throne. They started yelling demanding things of their king. The monster had to be captured. Some found he should be cast out to Jotunheim for that was where he was from. But others wanted a price on his head an execution. There were only so few that seemed to remember that Loki was also their prince. None of that had changed. He was still adopted by their father, he was as much a prince of Asgard as Thor was. Fandral drew his sword, giving Thor a sorrowful look. Volstagg joined. 

“I think now would be an appropriate moment to go after him.” Fandral said. “They’ll be coming, he needs to be out of sight, we got this.”

Thor gave him a grateful nod and ran after Loki. He could be quite far by now, he was a quick runner and he of course had his magic to rely on. He threw the doors open and looked around. The hallways bathed in a weak warm glow from the fires. At the moment it looked grim and ominous. The hall was perfectly empty and when the golden side-doors fell shut behind him there was almost complete silence. One would not even think there was a riot in there. Which also meant, Thor thought, that Loki did not yet know of the gravity of it. He took a few deep breaths, he could feel his heart pounding with absolute rage. The fire made the silver of his armour shimmer, he looked at it. It was for show, his was, Loki’s was, but perhaps tonight it would have to serve its actual purpose. The doors opened again and Thor moved to grab his hammer before he could make out his mother’s form. She looked at him, but she did not smile, not now. She looked so torn, so shocked and it took her a short moment to speak.

“Have you found him?” she asked worried.

“No, I meant to look for him just now.” 

She walked to him and kissed his forehead, letting out a shaky breath. Her fingers rested on the side of his face, trembling against his jawline.

“Find him. Take what you will need and go to Midgard, at once. I fear that Loki is not safe here at the moment, however much it hurts me to say so.”

It was true. Loki could not stay. They could run for the plains, the forest. But with a healing arm and his current need for proper food and rest it would not be a good place for Loki to stay in. Besides, people would even follow after them there. But Midgard would be safer, should be safer.

“Tell him I love him, that both his father and I cherish him as much as we do you. And that we will make sure that he can walk back in here loved when the time is right.”

Thor nodded, his face grave. 

“Now go… You need to hurry. I will make sure you can reach the observatory without trouble.”

Thor nodded again and turned away. He ran out the hallway until he reached the galleries, the evening air was cool and yet so silent, barely a sigh of a breeze. Where would Loki have gone? Even in distress his brother was a smart one. He would not have gone to his room. The tower had only one access and he would be cornered for it was the most logical place. They would look for him there. Thor’s room was the same. Quite logical, and also a tower. He would not have risked that. But he would want to feel safe somehow, secure. So he would pick a favoured place. Thor knew of a small room in the library, well-hidden but it was hard not to be seen when going there, it was located in the middle of the palace, going in or out of there would be a risk every time. He looked out over the gardens. The stables… He would have passed by here and seen them like Thor did now. He could have sought the company of Sleipnir, his son. It could’ve offered a good place to hide too. He decided that it was indeed quite possible so he hopped over the low balustrade and started running over the grassy field. He did not wish for anyone to see where he was going, he would lead them right to his brother! He took a quick look over the dark gardens, only the palace-lights and the stable’s gave some clarity to look around. But the night was dark, and for now, still quiet. Thor let himself in through the side-door. It was quiet here too, just some horse’s breathing or moving, rustling from some hay and straw. The horses did not seem restless. But Sleipnir did. From the other end Thor could already hear him snort and stomp around. Thor looked around to see if there was anybody, but the place was devoid of people. Even the stable-boys had already left for the night. Thor put his hand on Sleipnir’s nose before he peeked inside. Loki was not there. He had half expected him to sit pressed against the stable boards. He patted the horse’s neck and looked around again, puzzled.

“Loki?” he asked. “Loki are you-”

He found himself unable to finish that sentence as two chains lashed around his ankles and flung him onto the attic, safely into one of the hay-stacks.

“Silent Thor…” Loki whispered.

Thor sat up and sighed, relieved. Loki had driven himself into the far corner, his knees pulled to his chest. His eyes were wide with fright and he looked positively panicked.

“I told you…” he started with a weak voice. “I told you this would happen.”

Thor just looked at him for a moment. He looked enraged too, but he knew that he could not do much so there was just a lot of fear in his brother.

“I told you that Sif would find a way to kill me!”

“Do you know what happened in there after you left then?” Thor spoke calmly to ease the atmosphere.

“Yes. Sif and Hogun already passed here. They, like you had figured I would seek out Sleipnir. I only just got up here in time. But Hogun told her that she did not need to worry, because all of Asgard would be after me by now.”

His face paled even more as the meaning of that sunk in.

“All of Asgard… I can’t dodge all of Asgard.”

Thor saw him spiral down farther into panic.

“Hey, not all of Asgard. Not mother, not father. Fandral and Volstagg are with you, Heimdal will let us pass safely. We leave, now. We go to the observatory and travel to Midgard, and the rest will take care of Asgard. Hear me Loki? You will be safe.”

Loki shivered but Thor thought he understood. He sat down in front of Loki.

“Can you teleport like this?”

Loki shook his head. 

“Hardly… Only myself, maybe, I don’t know.” His voice wavered.”

Thor grabbed Loki’s neck, like he used to and held the back of his skull, forcing Loki’s gaze up.

“Loki, you will calm down. You will teleport to your room to retrieve those things you packed, and then you will teleport again to the observatory.” He spoke slowly and gravely. “You can do that.”

Loki’s eyes lost some of that wild hunted look and he nodded curtly.

“I can do that.” He repeated.

Thor nodded and gave him a soft pat to the shoulder. 

“I will meet you there.”

He moved to the hatch and looked around below. It was still quiet. He lowered himself and went on his way to make it to the Bifrost himself in the meantime.  Loki waited for Thor to leave until he let his magic build a bridge to his room. A portal formed when the bridge was made, like a mirror of green vapour. It was unsteady, it flickered and lost some of its shape. Under normal circumstances he would not travel by it, the force would be too raw. But he had no time and he knew for a fact that he could not do better than this at the moment. He stood up and put his hand out, the moment he as much as touched the surface he was pulled in and just about thrown to the other end.  He made it to his room, his shoulder impacting with the window as he was flung out of his bridge. He managed to stay on his feet however. It was still quiet now. So he wasted no time to jerk the drawer out of his desk and grabbed the leather bag. He threw it over his shoulder as he started to hear it. Voices. He thought for a second that he was just hearing things but they became louder and then there were footsteps as well. He turned around quickly and grabbed the box on his desk. His hands shook so bad he could barely pull out the double-bottom and grab the ring in it. He hastily slipped it around his finger. He heard something shatter against the door, glass. He did not think much of it until such a penetrating smell reached his nostrils and a blue smoke started to creep in from the crack under the door. Blue mist. He couldn’t breathe that in. He made another bridge, to the observatory. But this time the distance was greater and his focus smaller because the mist came closer. It shook and faltered. He took a deep breath, inhaling a mouthful of the vapour on the floor. It wasn’t safe, but this was only going to get worse. He stretched his arm and the pull was so violent he feared he dislocated a shoulder. In the observatory he met the wall harshly before he fell back on his shoulders. Thor almost startled to death as his brother smacked into the wall out of nowhere. It was so fast and violent. He hurried over.

“Loki! Gods, did you break anything?”

Loki shook his head slowly. Thor was vague in his vision, his face blurring at a few places.

“Nothing that hadn’t been broken already.” 

He was glad the pain was numb. But his sleeve started to soak dark again.

“You are-”

“I know, we don’t have time… I breathed in blue mist. Everything is fading already.”

Thor winced. Blue mist was extremely effective against sorcerers. It corrupted their stream of magic, forcing the body to shut down and fix it. He would be asleep in moments.

“It’s fine. I’ll take care of everything. When you wake up you’ll be safe on Midgard.”

Loki snorted but it lacked conviction.

“Safe on Midgard…”

Thor gave Heimdal a quick nod. 

“Yes Loki, safe. I promise.”

Before Heimdal had put the sword in its lock however, Loki was already unconscious.

 


	3. Among friends

Chapter 3: Among friends.

 

Thor landed safely on Midgard, nothing but a puff of sand stirred as his feet met solid ground again. The skies were bright, many stars lighting the dark cosmos above. Such a different sight than Thor knew from home. Midgard’s night was black. Asgard’s sky knew colours of nebula that made the nights look colourful even. This night on Midgard was still young, on the horizon there was still a vague lighter blue of where the sun was disappearing from sight. But this place he knew, the desert. Last encounter with this place had been less than peaceful, to be hit fully by one of Midgard’s curious vehicles, cast out by his father. Now it was still quiet, the only light coming from the stars and the small town at the horizon. But this time he was not powerless, this time the trusted weight of Mjolnir hung on his side. He put Loki over his shoulder more securely. He had no trouble holding him, he weighed so little as of late. He had him hanging there like shot wild-game. But it was the easiest way to keep that hurt arm clear of obstruction. His brother only grunted softly, but he was still quite deep under. Thor heard a deep humming, steady but ever getting louder. He turned his head to the direction of the town and saw two of the lights coming much closer, a dust-cloud flying up behind them. Thor smiled and started approaching the van slowly. When it came close he stopped to see it stop with a screech. Mid-stop the backdoors flew open and Jane hung out, her face bright and excited when she saw her suspicions confirmed. She jumped out before the tires actually stood still.

“Thor! It is you!” 

“Who else would it be?” he grinned.

She ran to greet him but stopped when she could find out what actual baggage Thor was carrying over his shoulder.

“Is-is that a person Thor?” she asked with a small voice.

Her face immediately took on a expression of deep worry, it reminded Thor of his mother.

“There is no need for concern lady Jane.” Thor patted Loki’s back. “Loki’s injury is not fatal, he is only knocked out for the time being.” 

He smiled and closed the distance she had stopped at.

“It is so very pleasant to meet you once again.”

To his surprise Jane set a few steps back again, startled.

“Loki?” her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why would you take him here?”

Thor sighed and suddenly he felt a tiredness, having to defend Loki again, and again. It was becoming a tiresome business.

“I know there is much to explain, but will you please trust me on this? We had to leave home in a hurry and…” he shrugged, he could not make her help him.

Darcy and Selvig also came out of the car, sliding out from the front seats. Darcy greeted him rather cheerfully but Selvig immediately looked on edge, he already had suspicions. Thor ignored the man’s look for a moment, instead returning the odd gesture that Darcy made to him, those two fingers stuck up in a ‘v’. But apparently Darcy thought  it sufficient because her grin widened.

“Peace Thor.” She laughed.

Thor frowned but decided he would have to ask later. He turned his eyes back to Jane. 

“I can and will not force you to aide me lady Jane… But I would be grateful if you would.” 

Darcy and Selvig came to stand with Jane, Darcy’s smile had faded and she now looked at her friend in question. Selvig looked quite dark now, grave. 

“Loki needs a healer, I will seek out one, all I ask if you will let us stay for the moment.”

Selvig looked at Jane but she shrugged to him and he could read from her face that she really did not understand this either.

“You mean a doctor Thor?” Darcy asked, holding open the backdoors of the van. “I mean, he looks like shit honestly.”

Jane nodded and walked back to the van as well, her mind made up too. Thor would never do a thing to bring harm, if he brought his brother than there were things going on that she did not yet understand. But she would, she would ask and then all would be clear…

“Are we really helping him?” Selvig stayed, he did not shout or yell, but he was far from amused. 

“Thor is our friend, of course we should help.” Darcy said, taking Loki’s shoulders as Thor lay him down and dragged him in.

“I am not talking about Thor. I’m talking about him.” He pointed an accusing finger to Loki. “No offense to you Thor, but that guy is a murderous maniac. He blew up half of New-York.”

“Come on Eric, I’m sure Thor can explain it, but he needs help okay?” 

Darcy was starting to become more and more dear to Thor. She helped him defend his brother.

“Oh he needs help alright! But I don’t think there is a shrink for his kind of crazy.”

Jane stayed quiet as she got behind the wheel.

“Later my friend, please.” 

Selvig’s face softened at Thor’s almost pleading voice. He looked at the ground and rubbed his face with his hands for a moment, mumbling things to himself. 

“Just because it’s you.” He answered eventually.

He got in next to Jane and decided not to look to the back of the van. The car shook a bit as it started and then they drove again. It was quite dark but Thor could see Darcy tap her fingers against the bench in a rhythm of a song. She looked the least tense to be honest. 

“Say… I hate to break it to you. But I don’t think that finding a doctor will be easy.” She suddenly said.

Thor looked up.

“Are healers scarce on your world? For that ‘hospital’ you once took me to seemed to hold many.”

“Well, he’s not really… appreciated on this world you know?” 

Selvig snorted at that. Thor looked up, wasn’t Selvig a doctor? The other man looked back but shook his head, already understanding what the blond god was thinking.

“Sorry buddy. Doctor is my PHD title, it means I can do science. But I can barely stick a band aid straight.”

Thor nodded and frowned. He did not know what to do either. He knew basic things that were important in battle, where to keep pressure to halt the bleeding most effectively. How to angle the limp to stop most of the pain. But this stuff, fractures and those. He only knew not to touch them unless absolutely necessary. He took off the vambrace around Loki’s wrist to give the sleeve some space again. 

“Mother’s healing charm was to mend the bones again. But I fear that the bone has shifted.”

Darcy looked up. 

“He got this before today?”

“This morning actually. But with the riot… He had to run and everything…” 

Darcy and the other exchanged some looks. Riots and attacks, they sure missed out on some background here. Jane suddenly had an epiphany.

“Oh, what about those rocks! Those healing stones you used to save Eric.” She looked back to read Thor’s expression quickly before turning her eyes on the road again. They were now back in town again, the light of the lanterns came in and lit their faces every now and then.

“We are at war. Our healing stones went with our soldiers. Healing stones are quite rare. They can be mined in little quantities only.”

Jane parked the van out front their science labs. They were as Thor remembered, only there was more at the back now, a second part, not made of glass walls but mostly of brick.

“What about Banner?” Darcy said carefully. “He was a doctor in India. He ought to know a thing or two.”

Selvig chuckled lowly.

“I would sign for that…” 

Thor made a face.

“I do not think that is such a good idea, given their last encounter…”

“I think it’s not so bad. If there is one man that knows that looking past flaws is important it would be him. I mean, everyone sees him as the large green man, not as the genius he actually is.”

Jane grabbed her keys and opened the doors.

“Whatever you choose though, we had bedrooms built with the cheque from S.H.I.E.L.D. You can let Loki stay there.” 

She smiled thinly. It felt weird to mention Thor’s brother in such a way. Heck, this whole thing felt weird. Loki was with Thor, and Thor she trusted with her life… but it was Loki. A god that was known for his lies and trickery. But Thor should be able to see past that right? And could somebody even pretend that well? He looked really bad, thin and hollow. She looked as Thor gently put his brother over his shoulder again, one strong arm wrapped around the other’s waist. He looked grave, his lips in a thin line as his thoughts went to some other place. He was worried sick. Thor disappeared upstairs for a while with Darcy to put Loki in bed and when he came back it looked as if a burden had fallen from his shoulders. Darcy did not come back, leaving Jane to think she probably tried that first-aid course on the younger god. 

“I cannot thank you enough for trusting me again.”

She tried to cheer him up with a warm smile.

“It’s okay Thor. You were in need of help.”

He nodded and sat down on one of the chairs. He looked really tired.

“Where can I find Banner? Darcy is right. We can trust him most…. For now.” He looked upstairs to the door behind which he’d put his brother.

“Loki will be asleep for a while. Darcy said she would stay and see if she could do something. So it would be best if we went to retrieve him soon.”

Jane patted his shoulder.

“I’ll give Bruce a call. Grab a glass of water, some coffee, whichever. It looks like you had a rough night.” She softly kissed his cheek. “And it looks like it will not be over yet so you should take this moment of rest.”

“I- I know it is hard… To confide in me when you know what he has done to your people. But please take my word for now that that man was not Loki. Not the one I know, this one is. This is the brother I love Lady Jane, even I thought he was lost…”

“Sshh Thor… Later. I’ll call Bruce. You just have a seat and drink something. Everything will be fine.”

Selvig watched it from his place on the couch. One had to be a fool not to realise that Thor’s pain was real. He just felt that it was hard to believe that there was another side to this devilish brother of his. But he was willing to experience it. If he would see it with his own eyes he might believe it. He got up and made the three of them coffee. He put a mug in Thor’s hands, on the desk for Jane and then leaned against the stairs himself. Thor could read on his face that he was not in a mood to have a conversation. He was thinking. It was a mood he had seen Loki in quite often, and if he would decide to talk anyway he was often shut out rather bluntly. He smiled softly. He looked at Jane, beautiful, kind Jane. She was talking through one of those ‘cell-phones’ as he had heard them be called on occasions, fidgeting with a smiley-faced stress ball on her desk. But apart from her conversation that hardly consisted of more than ‘mhm ’ or ‘of course’ it was quiet. He sipped at the hot brew and heard the door of the bedroom open. He looked up to find Darcy leaning over the steel balustrade, looking down at them with asking eyes. 

“Hey, Eric. Can you hand me a pair of scissors? I think cutting open his sleeve is better since it’s all dirty…” 

Eric slowly pushed himself off the stairs and walked to the drawers to fetch what Darcy had asked for. He held it out and she came down to swiftly take them from his hand. She didn’t smile at him or anything, even she knew that was a bad move when Selvig’s face looked like that. Silently she returned upstairs again, shutting the door behind her once more. Selvig let out a sigh.

“You know buddy… If all this starts to get explained, better make sure I have a beer in my hand. Because so far, I won’t believe a word you say… There is no way that I can believe that the guy I met has any good in that head of his.” 

He thought he would just put it out there.

“Then a beer you shall have for it is truth.”

Selvig smiled thinly and sat down again, pretending to be really busy with something on his computer, mumbling about Norse gods being crazy beings.

“Thor…” Jane said softly.

He turned his face to look at her.

“I called Bruce… but he’s not really what you call close. I told him we have a bit of an emergency, but he said the best he could do was get here in 8 hours. There is no other flight or travel-plan that can get him here earlier.” 

Thor huffed and drank the rest of his drink, that would not do.

“Your Midgardian travel is too slow.”

She shrugged and put the phone in her pocket.

“I can’t change that… I didn’t tell him that it was Loki… Just that it was an emergency we would require him for.”

Thor grabbed Mjolnir and made to go outside again.

“Where can I find dr. Banner at the moment?”

“Oh, he said he was at a congress-meeting in Washington.”

“Where is Washington? Is it a land?”

Jane shook her head and grabbed Selvig’s computer from him. She went to type in a few things until a map appeared. 

“Look, this little arrow that says A is us. Here we are. And arrow B is Washington. It’s about 1850 miles east from here.” 

She moved a few things along and suddenly there was a white building on the screen.

“This is what it looks like, the congress-centre.” 

Thor nodded and took a good look. That would take him no more than fifteen minutes if he flew right away. 8 hours, Midgardians were so very primitive. He walked outside again.

“I will return quickly.”

Jane ran after him, surprised to find Thor leaving. 

“Wait, Thor! Where are you going?”

Thor shrugged, that was quite clear was it not? He swung Mjolnir, the sand stirring.

“I’m going to give Doctor Banner a lift.”

He came off the ground and disappeared to the skies. Jane let out an amazed laugh before she waved after him and returned to the warmth of the facility.

Thor took the directions Jane had given him until he could make out that weird building. It was rather unique, it looked like nothing else in this city. He descended and landed on a lawn that was meticulously kept. He hadn’t ever seen something like it. Not a strand of grass seemed longer than another, flowers were planted in neat rows. This building was important. He looked ahead. It looked quite a lot bigger now that he had arrived. He made his way towards the steps that led up to the doors. So many steps. But he could barely set a foot on the white stone before he was met by two suited men. Was he expected then? Or were these guards of some sorts? 

“What do we think we are doing here sir?”

Such a stern and demanding tone. Definitely guards then. But where was their armour? They wore suits, black suits with black ties and then sunglasses. It was night? Why would these men need glasses to shield the light? And there were little plugs in their ear. How very strange.

“There is no need to see me as a threat. I am Thor of Asgard.”

“We haven’t heard that one before…” one of them snorted. “You could be the queen of England but you won’t come in without an invitation.”

“I am no queen you morons! I am a god!” Thor shouted insulted. “And I have never been to this England!”

“We really don’t care. No invitation, no entry.” 

“But I must speak to dr. Banner!” 

The men in suit looked almost identical. He could only tell them apart by their hair, one was almost platinum blonde where the other was dark, but they even had the same haircut. It was mildly creepy.

“Then you wait and call him later. Or does the god Thor not own a phone?”

They sounded so sarcastic.

“I do not. If I may not enter would you please at least fetch him, then I might forgive your poor treatment of me.” 

One of them was at the point of laughing now, but the other’s face dropped.

“Jones… Jones, he really isn’t kidding.”

Jones’s grin withered too and Thor thought he could almost see his eyes widen behind those glasses.

“You are Thor from the Avengers?”

“Who else would I be you dim-witted pigs?” Thor growled.

“I’m still not buying it.” Jones crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Thor growled and gave the man his hammer. 

“Hold it and tell me so again.”

The second he let it slip him from his own fingers Jones just about fell forward with the weight. With a heavy clunk the hammer met the ground and however hard he tried Jones could not even do as much as drag it an inch. Not even when his face turned tomato-red from trying. He eventually gave up and stepped back, panting heavily. 

“Doctor Banner, if you please.” Thor growled.

“Yeah… one moment.” 

Jones left, leaving the blond guard behind to wait by Thor.

“So… eh, what are you up to here?” the guy asked awkwardly.

“I require the doctor’s assistance.”

“Ah… well…” silence again. “Could you sign my notepad, my son loves you.”

Thor cracked a smile at the man.

“Of course my man.”

He scribbled his name down and something like ‘fight like a warrior.’ Tony had told him people here on Midgard loved that.

“Thanks. And eh, sorry about this… You know, we get some uninvited idiots sometimes.”

Thor nodded, but his focus was already with Jones that returned with Banner at his side. Banner was as he remembered him. That fidgety, nervous, little man. As they joined Thor and the blonde human Jones gestured his colleague to move along. They had a job to do. Bruce patiently waited for them to move out of range.

“This would have to do with miss Foster’s emergency I presume?” he asked with a soft voice.

He was in suit too. Apparently there had been some party of sorts in there, one did not wear such a suit on a normal day. Even Thor knew that.

“You presume rightly. We require a doctor.”

Bruce let out a quiet snicker.

“I trust you are aware that there are far more and far more capable doctors than me. Why would you come here?”

They started walking to the end of the street. 

“Because we cannot trust such doctors with my brother.”

Bruce winced.

“Your brother… You mean, the overlord complex brother?”

They stopped at a building with many floors. Banner guided Thor to a small room on the other end of the hall below. Two doors slid open and they stepped in. It was a tiny room, plain. There were only buttons there on the right wall. Buttons with numbers. Bruce pressed one such button and the doors closed again. There was a faint pull and then the room moved, upwards. 

“Loki, yes.” Thor would not agree with the term Banner used.

“The other guy gets really restless when he is mentioned. I don’t know if seeing him will end so well.” There was a soft ping in the chamber and the doors slid open again to reveal a narrow corridor with many, many doors. 

“I swear to you that Loki is not a threat! Even your monster would know that if you saw him.”

Banner grabbed some keys and chose a door with number 647. 

“He is not my monster.” Bruce interjected. “But… you are sure, that it will not come to…. Trouble?” 

He did not cast a single look at Thor. He looked nervous, but then again, Thor found he always looked a little nervous.

“I am as sure as I know the sun will rise.”

Banner nodded vacantly and grabbed a shaggy old bag from the drawer in his nightstand. He opened it and looked at whatever was inside. 

“Will you help?”

Bruce let out a heavy sigh and stood straight again.

“Life is life… It’s not my right to let it fade. Even if I have a quarrel with the person living it. But you must tell me now if helping your brother will lead to a repeat of the events of last year. Because I do not want that on my conscience.”

Thor looked the man right in the eye.

“I swear it on my life and honour.”

Banner nodded again and grabbed his coat from the hook next to the door. Thor vaguely wondered if Bruce lived here. It was so plain, so impersonal. There were no books or trinkets. Nothing to suggest a form of living here. 

“This isn’t my home… It’s a hotel-room. It’s only to stay temporary.” Bruce answered his unasked question.

He quickly put his last things in a weekend-bag and swung it over his shoulder.

“What kind of problem does Loki have? Is he ill or injured? Both?”

They walked back to the small chamber at the end of the corridor. Bruce had left the keys in the door, someone else would find them soon enough. 

“His arm is broken and there are claw-wounds in his same arm.”

Bruce inclined his head, clearly not too fond of having to confront these things at the moment. 

“How bad? The fracture.” He hoped he even had the right supplies to treat such injuries. He had no plaster, but with a lot of blood there could be no plaster.

“The bones have met the air.” 

Bruce’s lips formed a thin line. For any person he’d have felt sorry, the pain such a wound caused was horrible. But because it was this man, he felt a little voice in his mind say he deserved that. He pushed it away. He could not make such judgements until he had seen the guy for himself. 

“Please bring us to the roof.” Thor said as Bruce moved to push a button.

Banner gave him a confused glance but did what Thor asked. An awkward silence fell between them again. Bruce had many questions. Why was Thor so very certain that Loki wasn’t murderous? Why were they on Earth and not home? How did Loki even come by such a violent injury?

“What happened?” that would cut all of it.

Besides, talking eased the other guy, who was stirring with all his confusion and questions.

“What do you mean?”

“To Loki. What changed?”

“Nothing changed, he became the person he has always been again.”

Thor didn’t seem to feel like discussing Loki or his motives with him.

“You may ask Loki about this. It is not my place to tell you about his life.” 

Asgardian moralities then. Bruce shrugged.

“Then I will do that.”

Another ping announced their arrival at the top floor. To Thor it seemed not much had changed. This corridor also had many doors. It was as narrow as the other and the wood was the same. Only the flooring was of a darker grey rug and the walls were light-blue instead of the minty green he had seen of Banner’s floor. They made a turn for a white painted door and a small staircase led them to the roof. Up there it was quiet and the wind was chilly. It swept through Thor’s hair and he took a moment to orientate the way back to Jane.

“And now? Did you get a helicopter?” Bruce put on his coat and shrunk in on himself to shield himself from the wind. 

Thor grinned and grabbed Mjolnir again.

“No my friend. We will travel the Aesir way.”

 


	4. Monsters

Chapter 4: Monsters.

The fog faded slowly from Loki’s mind, too slowly for his likes. He felt heavy and his thoughts were slow. He hears voices, distant and vague. They were yelling, but they were too far to hear what about. He groaned and tried to shift his body. It was heavy and his mind didn’t seem to recall he actually had limbs in the first place. But he felt nothing holding him back, no restraints of any sorts. Which meant he was probably safe.  

“Don’t move… Please. Jane will go berserk on me if you bleed on her sheets.” 

That voice suddenly so near made him jerk his eyes open. Not that he saw a lot at first. It was dark, a few bulbs of light blurring his vision. He’d heard the young woman’s voice mention a ‘Jane.’ That was Thor’s lady Jane no doubt. So that’s where he had brought him.

“Welcome back sunshine.” 

When his vision cleared she just hovered over him, Jane’s friend… Darcy as he remembered correctly. She was grinning at him.

“Thor will be right back.” 

Back? Thor wasn’t there? He looked at her again. She had wiped the grin of her face, probably also noticing that it was just a little creepy. She had turned it into a nervous smile as she sat down in the desk chair again, scribbling letters in some form of rows. He would ask what it was but he had other things to look at. He turned his face left to find his arm bare,  the sleeve had been cut and the bandages wrapped off mostly. Someone had put some kitchen towels under it to staunch the bleeding. From the corner of his eye he saw Darcy look at him expectantly. Ah yes, he was ought to talk back. 

“Where did Thor go?” he asked.

His voice cracked because his throat was too dry and his words were slow from his mind being so hazy. He pushed himself up with his good arm to sit straight and put a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes. Darcy put the pillow behind his back to lean on. She was a bit awkward around him, it must have played in the back of her mind that he had killed, or had let other people kill, hundreds. But she did not say a word on it.

“He went out to get Banner for you. To look after your….arm.” she swallowed and turned her face away. “Look, I think biology is real cool and stuff but it’s just… very gross.” 

She gestured at his wounds and instead walked to the other side of the bed, leaving it out of her sight. Loki grunted as his mind sought any recollection of a ‘Banner.’ He found none.

“Who?”

“The Hulk.” Darcy said blatantly as she held out a glass of water.

Loki’s face dropped before he turned it away to hide such panic. His knuckles turned white around the glass and as Darcy asked if he was okay he didn’t answer. Why would Thor do that? Why would he bring the monster, the great green monster. What reason could there be that, that Thing would have to look at his wounds?

“Why?” he asked with a small voice as he simply could not wrap his mind around it.

“Bruce is a doctor…” Darcy shrugged, a bit surprised. “We figured we could at least trust him because, well because he knows you.”

He snorted and took a few sips of water, staring blankly at the books in the bookcase in front of him. 

Trust him because he knew him… he should distrust him because he knew him.  

“Hey ummm…” Darcy started awkwardly, picking little bits of fuzz from her woollen sweater.  

Loki turned his head, showing her he was listening.

“This whole, taking over the world thing, are you really like that?”

He shook his head, looking at the sheets, he was still a bit too groggy to focus his eyes properly on something. He just tried to ignore that feeling of air on his bones. He was a terrible conversation at the moment.

“Thor would not leave me here if I was.” 

His thoughts brought him back to the riot. He’d had a fair share of nightmares about something like it. But one deals with nightmares by knowing them untrue.

His nightmares had come true. The people of Asgard were on a very real head-hunt for him. People he had climbed trees with as a child or had fought alongside of in wars. He’d fled his home and his home hunted him like a criminal… Like a monster. He wondered now for the first time, should he have just stayed on Jotunheim? Would it have solved everything? To stay dead, to stay gone. It would have cost him Thor and his parents. But was this worth it? Not just for him, but for them? The hate people had for him, also hit them. What really did he bring home to them, other than pain?

“How, How did you get that?” Darcy shook him out of his thoughts.

She was looking at his left side but her eyes kept going to his face, reading his expression all the time.

“I had it coming.” 

His voice was a sneer. He was not in a mood to dive into those memories too. But Darcy frowned, clearly taken aback by the hostile way he spoke to her.

“Sorry.”

“Let me tell you something… Nobody has such a thing coming… Whoever would do that to you is way out of line.”

Loki stared at her. She clearly had never encountered Asgardian justice before. To find a thing like this ‘unfair.’ He had seen worse for crimes much less grave. True, the total count of torture which she knew nothing of was for Aesir standards unjustifiable too. But if it had been just the arm, he would have come off easy.

He was going to explain so to her, but outside he heard a thud and the flash of light accompanying it told him enough.

“That would be Thor.” Darcy confirmed.

Loki  nodded with a faint grimace.

“And the monster.”

“Bruce isn’t a monster.” She said almost reprimanding. “He’s a good guy. He just has this one part of him that bursts through every once in a while. That doesn’t mean that it’s all he is.”

She took the glass now that it was empty.

“You would know.” She said with a stern look.

Loki heard the door downstairs open and the far-away yelling he had kept hearing ceased. It had been downstairs. There was some more talking and then he heard feet against the steel steps of the chair. Thor’s heavy tread was one of them. The door flew open with a bit more force than intended, but then again, that was how Thor opened doors period.

“Brother!”

Loki smiled at his brother’s fond greeting, and suddenly he remembered again why this was completely worth it to have Thor back in his life again.

“I thought you would not wake until morning-light.”

Banner shuffled in on the doorstep too, just showing behind Thor’s huge back. He looked a little pale from his first travel in the Aesir way.

“Well, my magic has been reduced quite severely these past few months. So the effect of blue mist is less grave.” 

Behind Thor the doctor flinched at the sound of his voice. Memories were still quite fresh on this man’s mind. It made Loki even more reluctant to just let him get in the same room. But he stayed silent as Bruce entered the room and walked to his left side, putting his bag down and giving him the most awkward smile that Loki had seen on a person. Like he much rather wanted to cry than smile. When Banner had tried his awkward smile he turned his eyes to the wound. He flinched at it and his expression turned into disgust.

“I don’t even know if I have the right equipment for this…”

Thor stayed in the doorway and looked a while. When Banner didn’t seem to get green he turned a bit.

“Is there anything else you require of me? Jane and Eric are demanding an explanation and I think we owe them such.”

“Go, I’ll be good here.” Bruce mumbled, going into full doctor mode.

He lifted Loki’s arm gently to see all around it and look for complications.

Loki gave Thor a nod too. He did not really like the idea quite yet. But Thor would only be a call of his name away and that eased him enough to relax. Darcy also found herself curious to hear the story so when the door closed it was just Loki and Banner. A silence between them that seemed suffocating. The doctor did not feel like speaking, he was looking at the damage without touching.

“You Asgardians have weird perception of the term allies to have them do that to you.”

Loki turned his face to look at Banner. Thor had told him then? But Thor would not do that. He barely understood what was going on. 

“What makes you think it was my allies?”

“I guessed. I always thought you looked a little…ill when you showed up at S.H.I.E.L.D. I had guessed by then that you had had a bit of history prior to that.” 

He shrugged and put Loki’s arm back on the heap of kitchen-towels before taking out his bag.

“You looked really nervous too. When we captured you not maybe. But especially in Stuttgart. That show you put up there… It was nothing but trying to get a firmer hold on what you were doing.”

Loki narrowed his eyes. How the hell did he even know that?

“Don’t give me that look. It wasn’t all that hard to see when you have done it before yourself. Getting a grip on the other guy made me over-compensate too.”

Bruce smiled faintly, this one looked a bit more genuine. Then he opened the bag and grabbed one of the glass phials in it, shaking the liquid a bit. 

“You Norse gods… how do you react to human medicine?”

He asked half in thought. Loki frowned weakly.

“I’d say normal… They knocked out Thor when he was on Earth but, he had been banished.” 

It wasn’t like they were ever treated with human medicine. They only knew Aesir healing.

Bruce shrugged and grabbed a syringe from his bag to take a dose from the phial.

“We’ll see then.”

Loki froze as Bruce took out the needle from his bag. The fine steel just catching in the light of the lamps. It reminded him only of pain and damage.

“What does it do?” 

Banner looked up at the sudden hostility in that voice. And oh that angry tone brought memories. It made his fingers tremor for one moment as the Hulk stirred in him. But when he saw Loki’s face he found a whole new expression than back then. Fear. His eyes were wide, nostrils flared, jaw clenched. He was tensed in a position that had him ready to flee. Street cats, that’s what he reminded Bruce off, just minus the hissing and growling.

“It’s just an injection. For the pain.” 

He measured the dose and gave it to Loki. He knew his kind of afraid. Verifying its safety for himself would be enough. Loki took hold of the syringe and held it to the light. It did not look like a weapon. The needle wasn’t that long and it looked like it was hard to hold when he would struggle. In the small basin there was the clear liquid Bruce had taken out of the phial earlier. He gave it back quite reluctantly. Trust was something he still needed to work on. 

“Only for the pain. You have my word.”

He held the good side of his elbow and found a good patch of skin before settling the needle in one of the veins. Loki groaned and tried to jerk his arm away. But Bruce would not let him, the grip hardened warningly before he injected the painkillers. Quickly and briefly the doctor looked up. Such fear was striking. He had not known the trickster god before. But he had judged him a very good pretender. Everything seemed to leave him unaffected. Who this was, Banner did not think he knew actually. He really did not. He put the syringe away after he had wiped off the little bead of blood that welled up from Loki’s arm. 

“You have a monster too… Don’t you?” he asked. 

It was rhetorical. He knew it. Loki’s head snapped up when Banner said those words, but the other stared back calmly. 

“Yours is not green, not huge. That is the whole problem, isn’t it? Your monster looks exactly like you, so nobody sees that it’s there, nobody understands that you are torn because they cannot see it. Not like they can see mine.” He continued.

Loki just stared at Banner, eyes wide open. Banner knew what he was? But… no. He spoke of something else, something….deeper.

“Your monster… Craves greatness. Your monster feels mistreated. Your monster, wrecked New York. Not you. Just like my… monster… wrecked Harlem. We are not accountable for what’s twisted inside. To think so is foolish. To think so will make the monster win.”

Loki looked away.

“My monster…” Loki whispered, the words hanging in the air as if there was more he wanted to say.

Bruce carefully probed Loki’s arm with his thumb to see if the sedatives had kicked in yet. Loki never seemed to notice.

“My monster… might not be green no.” he looked at the tips of his fingers as they became blue slowly, the colour crawling up his arm like a hungry parasite. “Mine…. Mine is blue and cold as the winters Asgard and Midgard have not seen in ages.” 

Bruce looked as a melancholy echoed in Loki’s voice that he only heard with depressed people. He saw the blue and frowned, letting Loki speak.

“The only thing is… Your monster is part of you. I am part of my monster. You were born the man and became the monster. I was born the monster and I pretend to be the man.” The bitterness in Loki’s voice made Bruce want to do something about it.

The blue got pushed back under by that faint pink of Loki’s skin again. Banner remembered that Thor had told them that Loki had been adopted. He had always assumed that it had been from another family on Asgard. But suddenly he wondered how wrong he had been to think that.

“I for one… Think that is extraordinary. There are many men that are monsters too, that become monsters by the way they are… But I never saw a monster that strived to be a man. There should be more of you…” 

Silence fell again and Bruce could tell from the way Loki’s lips quivered in a faint smile that he was holding back tears. Of sadness or relief he could not tell quite so clearly.

“Where was your monster born?”

He decided he would no longer handle them as the same person. He knew how much he hated it when people did that to him.

Loki looked up once before casting his eyes elsewhere, on his wounds this time as Bruce let go of them to listen properly.

“Jotunheim. The realm of giants.”

Bruce gave him a bit of a confused look. 

“The frost giants of Jotunheim are wretched brutes. Jotunheim is a dark cold world, night or day cannot be discerned for no sun or moon shines through its blizzards. In fact, it is not the trolls or the dark elves that fill our stories. It’s the monsters of Jotunheim that mothers tell their little Aesir spouse of. They are nothing more to our people than the pests of which the heroes of Asgard have slayed hundreds of thousands.”

Bruce stayed silent and did not move. Loki didn’t really seem to talk to him anymore. He was talking to himself mostly, lost in thoughts that really seemed to haunt him. It stayed silent now. And eventually Bruce moved to get some anti-septic and dabbed it on the wounds while the other stayed motionless. The silence was starting to become rather heavy after a while but Bruce really could not think of anything to bring up that would not make this worse. Downstairs voices started yelling again in muted tones. That was when Loki suddenly moved again and sighed, leaning his head back instead of staying in that huddled position.

“They’re arguing over me.” He stated disapprovingly. “People always do.” 

Banner looked up but actually noticed Loki was still not really talking to him, so he silently wrapped a bandage around the wounds after he’d finished up his cleaning.

“Because everything must be decided for me… If I were to speak for myself, then surely I would twist and manipulate everything until everything goes exactly in the direction I wanted it to go.” He snorted sarcastically. “But if that were so…. Then why am I the one that always winds up getting hurt!” 

After that one outburst he fell silent again and Banner gently tapped at the seam of his bag.

“You should take some rest. You’re starting to become a bit… strange.”

Loki snapped out of his thoughts then and looked at Bruce, quite embarrassed at letting himself sink that deep. 

“You look haunted. I know the look. Focus on better things, or it will wreck you. Even you.” 

He put a pill on the night-stand and stood up.

“If it helps… I understand now. Just remember that people care.”

He smiled to bring some comfort but it was hard to lift the corners of his mouth up as he got that expression of the other back. So torn and desperate. 

“Sleep tight.”

He gave Loki a nod and closed the door as he left, letting out a heavy sigh. He hoped he did not have to go back in there tonight. He doubted it was good for him. He no longer worried for losing control. Loki was not what he had been thinking, what had been easy to think. Loki was broken, shattered even. He was sure that Thor had been piecing some of that together again. But he was not done yet. And he would need help. A hand to help putting everything together again. He looked down the railing to find everyone quiet once again. All four of them sat on the couches around the coffee-table, albeit slightly tense. Before Bruce could set foot on the floor again Thor had jumped up already, his face practically having the question written across it.

“Your brother’s wounds are fine.” He could not say Loki was fine, it would be a lie. “I told him to get some sleep. He looked like he needed it.”

He didn’t want to drop the bomb on Thor, or maybe Thor already knew. He knew Loki best after all, he would have seen how bad it was. Thor nodded and sat back on the couch again. Banner grabbed a desk chair and sat down in that with a sigh of exhaustion.

“And how are things here. I sense some tension.”

“How are things? I will tell you, I have to put up with the Norse god that brain-controlled me. And despite everything he is still believed over me.”

“Eric… We just talked about this. We will tell him to stay away from you. But we can’t just tell Thor to dump him elsewhere…” Jane sighed.

“Why not? I mean it’s not like he is a murderous criminal. Oh wait…he is! He will manipulate all of us, betray all of us. And I might have agreed on this… But I swear to god if he gets too close I will use Darcy’s taser.”

Thor jumped up, face red with anger.

“If you dare attack him I will defend him!” 

Jane rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed sigh. There we go again, she thought.

“Coffee, dr. Banner?” 

“Yes please.”

So this would take a while. He watched the three others become aggravated again as Jane just walked through the middle to get to the kitchen. She was clearly done with all the drama. She put on the coffee-maker and grabbed a biscuit to snack on while the machine made noises to produce the black brew. She watched with a shaking head as Thor started roaring about pride and honour and family. His Aesir oaths and standards finding no heed with Selvig. 

“Guys! It’s my taser! Nobody gets to use it but me!”

Jane grabbed the mug of fresh coffee and a slice of chocolate cake, figuring Banner would be hungry now anyway. She placed both on the desk and leaned against it.

“Look… It’s not that I mind Loki staying here. I really believe Thor when he says that there is more to Loki than we all thought. And I believe the story he told us too, about what happened…”

She looked back when she heard a loud clang as Thor slammed his hand on, and almost through, the table.

“But I think it would be better for all of us, especially Eric if you took Thor and Loki with you tomorrow.” 

Banner ate a few bites of the chocolate cake, because he was indeed very hungry by now. When Jane dropped that message he snorted.

“Where would I take them? My apartment can really not handle two Norse gods. It can’t handle one. There’s simply no space for them.”

Bruce fidgeted with the handle on his mug while he waited for his coffee to cool. He briefly looked at the scene. Darcy tried to be peacekeeper but was pretty much ran over by Thor as Selvig threw him a particularly nasty insult.

“Anywhere. But I would suggest a place that’s at least Thor-proof. He can get a bit…destructive.” Jane said when her eyes fell on the cracked table. 

Bruce let out a faint chuckle at the understatement. The two men were now standing face to face, staring each other off with rage. Darcy had stopped trying to fix it and now sat on the couch with her hands under her chin, wiped out from trying to stop Thor the bulldozer. Selvig lost this standoff, flinching under Thor’s gaze. He started walking away, retreating to his room.

“You’re all idiots! All of you! Can you not see that this is exactly what he wants?”

Jane pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. 

“And you should probably go real soon.” She added to her earlier point.

Bruce nodded slowly, still fidgeting and prying at the little ridges in the porcelain handle as he watched Thor settle down again and drop back on the couch like a sack of potatoes.

“Well… I do have one friend that lives quite large…”


	5. The science of magic

Chapter 5: The science of magic.

 

Loud as it had been when everyone was still awake, so quiet it was now. Only Thor and Bruce remained. Darcy had announced going to bed shortly after Selvig had left and Jane was sharing her room now that Loki was in hers. So they had wished the other two goodnight and left. There was a heavy silence between the two men. There was only the sound of Banner’s fingertips drumming on the desk. He was watching Thor rom his desk-chair but didn’t really feel like bringing anything up. What would he really talk about? He could not open his conversation with news the past year or so, Thor did not know all that much about Earth. In fact, Banner doubted that Thor knew what a Pope was. But Thor kept looking at him. Clearly he hoped for Banner to start talking, the blond god seemed to hate silence. The way Thor always spoke of his home, with halls and banquets and feasts, Bruce figured Thor hardly ever had silence around him. His life had to be filled with loudness and people. Those blue eyes shifted to him again before settling on the coffee-machine.

“We will be going tomorrow.” Bruce eventually said.

The words hung in the silence before Thor furrowed his brow.

“You might want to catch some sleep… You gods do sleep right?”

Thor looked up to the rooms.

“Where are we going? I cannot leave Loki, he can’t take that at the moment.”

“Loki will be going with us but-”

“-No.”

Banner frowned. Did Thor not just say he wanted Loki with him?

“Excuse me?”

He rolled back and forth in his desk-chair. 

“Loki must not travel in this condition.”

“He will have to…”

“I will not have it. Travelling to Midgard took its toll on him already I could see, he must take some rest, no travelling.” 

Banner did not really feel like arguing with a Norse god, especially not such a protective one. But he’d have to, staying was no option.

“Jane has asked me to take the two of you elsewhere. Tonight proved that staying here isn’t too healthy on either of you either.” He pointed at the damaged table. “I sent out a message to Tony. I am sure he will have seen it by morning. The man owns quite a deal of real estate. You two will be better off there and I can’t stay here either.”

Thor huffed. He did not want to be a bother to Jane and her friends. 

“I will see how he is by morning.”

It was good enough for Banner. He nodded and followed Thor’s gaze to the doors upstairs.

“Say…” he started slowly. “What happened back home? Loki was mumbling on all sorts of things… not everything made a lot of sense.”

“Many things… Too many to be good for any man.”

“Why are you on Earth then? I mean. After we met I of course brushed up on some mythology and things. If I could believe the stories, our world would not be the most logical place to go to. Especially not with your brother’s recent history here.”

“We had to. We have business with man of iron.”

Bruce frowned. Thor sure was cryptic in his explanations.

“What business?”

“All in due time… There is no use in explaining it to every person separately.”

“Ah…so… I’ll wait for it.”

The silence crept back between them as both ran out of new things to speak of.

“I think I will indeed take my rest for now. If we indeed leave by morning I shall be well-rested. If there is anything, I will be with Loki.”

Banner waved him off with a small smile, but Thor noticed his mind was elsewhere, perhaps trying to fill in blanks with whatever Loki had been telling him. Thor turned and made his way upstairs as silent as he could. He did not wish to wake any of the people asleep, it could disrupt the peace that had finally fallen over the building. The door to Jane’s bedroom creaked mildly as he opened it. The bedside light was still on, casting a soft yellow glow on the walls and furniture. He found Loki’s armour in a corner, neatly stacked in a way only Loki would care to put away his clothes. He looked at the bed to find Loki fast asleep. He was turned away from Thor, his back curled a bit because Loki always slept curled up on his side. He had fallen asleep in the undershirt of his armour and looked peaceful for once. Thor could not see any form of restlessness. When he walked to the other side of the bed he was glad he could confirm that Loki’s face indeed was that of a man sleeping, not of a man haunted. His bandaged arm was stretched out, his fingers dangling off the end of the bed. Thor softly touched Loki’s forehead and rubbed his thumb over the cool skin. 

“Finally…” he sighed, relieved to find his brother in peace for once. 

He smiled softly  and brushed his fingers through Loki’s hair once before he grabbed the remaining pillows on Loki’s side. He also grabbed the spare blanket from the closet and made himself a spot on the floor, looking at Loki’s back as he lay down and wrapped himself in the warm comfort of the blanket. He briefly thought of also removing his clothes and wrestled under the blankets to rid himself off it, all so he did not have to get out of his pit of pillows. 

Eventually he had struggled himself out of the steel and leather and he rested his head in the pillows with a sigh. Loki never stirred, not once. Thor kept watching. He did not expect anything to happen, no not at all. He just felt safer like that, keeping an eye on his little brother to make sure nothing could happen.

In the end, Thor could not remember falling asleep. He just knew he had, because he woke up from slumbers again to the sound of birds chirping somewhere outside and cars driving by. He opened his eyes again and felt overwhelmed by the brightness of morning light that flooded the room. Nobody had thought of closing the curtains the night before. So now the whole room bathed in the pale light that originated from that window above the desk. His eyes moved from the windows to the bed. Loki was awake already, he sat a bit hunched over, his knees pulled up slightly and he was picking at a bit of dried blood on his right knee. His black hair was still messy from sleeping, he had not gotten out of bed yet. Thor didn’t move from his spot, instead he wanted to linger in the quiet warmth of this moment. It felt light and careless for now. Loki was not tense for once, all his muscles were at rest, he was off guard, just picking at that little crust of dark red. His face was displaying of mild discomfort but also that very determined gaze of not stopping before he would get rid of that itchy bit of dried blood. Sometimes, Thor thought, they really didn’t differ all that much from the Midgardians in their habits.

“It will heal better if you would just let it stay there.” Thor mumbled, still not moving an inch.

Loki just shrugged. He didn’t even flinch or startle a bit from the notice Thor was awake. He’d probably known the moment Thor opened his eyes. 

“Once you start…” he grimaced as he tore off the last bit. “It is so hard to stop it.”

He softly rubbed over the tender skin under it, still pink from just having healed. Thor chuckled at that and sat up against the bookcase, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He heard Loki get up and peeked quickly to see him get to the trash-can to rid of the little crust. He yawned and fell back on the bed again.

“How did you sleep?” Thor asked, hoping Loki’s night had stayed as peaceful as it was before he had drifted off.

“Good enough.”

“Good enough doesn’t sound like good.”

“I won’t get to say ‘good’ as long as I still dream.”

Loki sighed and sat up again, watching Thor’s face change with worry.

“I’m not made of glass Thor…” he smiled.

“That does not mean you cannot shatter.”

Loki frowned weakly and shuffled to the other end of the bed to get closer to Thor. He leaned forward and looked in Thor’s eyes, taking a deep breath.

“Stop pitying me.”

“You know I can’t. You are my brother, of course I pity you.”

Loki cast his eyes down before letting them return to Thor’s.

“I am not-”

“Yes you are.”

Loki sighed at Thor’s stubbornness, but it made him smile as well.

“I do not want pity Thor…”

“That’s your loss.”

“Pity is for those that are unfortunate.”

“What would you call yourself if not unfortunate?” Thor snorted.

“A fool.”

The words lingered in the air. Loki kept Thor’s gaze for a moment but then turned his face away with thinned lips. 

“We cannot stay here. We need to leave today. I cannot keep losing time if I want to finish the Tesseract in time.”

Thor frowned as Loki suddenly changed subject.

“Loki I was not-”

“I was done.”

Thor sighed and shrugged.

“Fine… Jane had already said we should leave soon. Banner has contacted man of iron. He only had to wait for a reply.”

Loki nodded. 

“Good.”

He sounded very content at least.  There was a hesitant knock on the door. 

“Are you guys awake?” Jane sounded from the other side.

“Yes. We are.” 

Thor sat up and tried to look a bit more awake. The door opened and Jane shuffled inside. She was hunched a little and kept putting her hair behind her ear with a nervous smile. She looked so awkward.

“Goodmorning.” She said with a soft voice.

She tried to keep focused on Thor but her eyes kept shifting to Loki nervously. Apparently she felt a lot less easy when he was awake. 

“I- I ummm brought you guys some clothes. If you want them. And there will be breakfast in a few minutes.”

She put the stacks of clothes on the desk and went back to the door.

“So….. I guess I’ll leave now.” She pointed at the door. “Bye.”

The door closed with a soft thud and the moment she was gone Loki let out a snort.

“So that is where you have laid your affections?”

“Do not mock her brother.”

“She is no queen Thor.” 

“I know… I’m not with her anymore… not like that. But she is a dear friend and I still like her for the person she is.”

“I meant nothing with it.” Loki defended. “I just joked.”

Thor nodded.

“Apology accepted.”

He grabbed his own stack of clothing and started to switch his Aesir underclothes for the Midgardian ones. Like last time the clothes of Jane’s last boyfriend fit just fine. As he wrestled to get into the t-shirt he already smelled the scents of eggs and coffee. It was a warm kind of familiarity to him and he smiled. Loki stopped half way dressing though, trying to make sense of the scent. Thor snorted at the way Loki’s clothes fit him, or rather, how they did not fit him. The grey jeans just about fell from his hips and the black button-down hung off his frame rather poorly. Loki made a face at himself. He muttered under his breath in what Thor assumed to be a curse at the clothes, until the fabric shaped to Loki’s body to fit him like they were his and his alone. 

“That is one trick I would be invested in to learn.” Thor said with surprise. 

Loki looked up and grinned sheepishly. 

“Tailors tend to get my sizes wrong quite often. Since I lack a ‘warrior’s’ posture.” 

Loki decided he liked the Midgardians’ casual clothing. It was comfortable enough now that it fit. The trousers took a little getting used to though, they felt so tight and un-flexible. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and saw Thor give him a look.

“What?”

“Can you travel? I will convince Jane and the others if you are not ready yet.”

“I’m fine. The bone started to grow together already. And besides, I need to hurry. I cannot keep lingering. I lost two days to this nonsense already.”

Thor sighed and rubbed at his face. 

“Fine, if that is what you please. But promise you will eat well. I remember the banquet and you have barely eaten a slice of bread that evening. You cannot recover without sustenance.”

“I promise. If you will stop babying me.” Loki almost hissed it in his annoyance.

But the scent made his mouth water, keeping this promise would be no problem at all. His stomach was indeed rather empty and neglected. 

“Good, the way Darcy makes eggs will leave you craving for tons of them.”

Loki rolled his eyes but let Thor pull him along. As they left the room and Loki looked over the balustrade he found that everyone else had already seated themselves at the table. The smell was even more present now and it made Loki take a deep inhale. Their bare feet made hardly any sound on the stairs so it wasn’t until Darcy turned around to put the last food down that they were noticed.

“Goodmorning.”

The rest of the faces turned towards them. Jane patted on a chair next to her to invite Thor to come sit with her. Selvig paled and got up.

“I- I need to look up those satellite codes for today’s research.” He said for an excuse before he grabbed his plate and moved to the desk on the very far end of the building.

“Eric!” Darcy said disappointed.

But Loki was mostly happy that the scientist chose that way to deal with it. No calling him names, no confrontation, just evasion. And he liked that just fine. Still the young woman felt like she had to compensate for her friend’s behaviour.

“So… I made this insanely huge breakfast because you look like one of the holocaust survivors and that’s creepy.”

Bruce snorted from behind his morning newspaper. Loki did not understand the word ‘Holocaust’ but given that it compared to his condition he assumed it to be something bad. He would look it up once, maybe. He gave her a thin smile and held her gaze as she grinned back warmly.

“Why do you treat me as a friend?”

He saw all eyes shift to him as he asked it, because he had failed to realize how small and insecure it had sounded. Because, he wanted friends, real friends. But if he would be betrayed he did not think he could take it at the moment.

“I just don’t get it.” He added.

Darcy’s grin softened into a compassionate little smile. 

“Well… Because, to me you are a bit like a street cat. Those really are no bad creatures, they are what they are because somebody maltreated them, because life is rough. If you just treat them different, they might come around.”

“Yeah, or they’ll lash at your throat and kill you in your sleep.” Selvig said bitterly from his spot at the far desk.

“Eric!” Darcy shouted warningly.

“Why doesn’t really matter. I just like you.” 

She said down. 

“Our chairs don’t actually bite you know?” she urged as Loki made no move to sit.

He took the hint and sat down on the chair that Selvig had abandoned a few moments earlier. Darcy slapped a few pancakes on a plate and then took another where she scooped eggs onto and two slices of bread. 

“You are not getting up again before you finish that.” Her voice was stern.

Banner snickered softly at the irony. He had not touched his own food yet, he wished to finish his reading first. Tony had sent him a cryptic little message in return. Something about making arrangements to be able to have guests, that he had to sit tight because he would get back to him.

Well, if Tony had set his mind on something he would wish the ones trying to change it good luck. Loki did as he was told and started eating. He noticed his bag laying around on the couch, opened, somebody had gone through it. His eyes shifted away again as he heard a chair pull away. Jane got up and went to retrieve something from her desk. It was one of his books. She had just taken the liberty to go about and snatch his book. Jane put it on the table with such little care that he cringed, that book was over an age old. 

“Read it for me Thor?” she asked in a most sugar-sweet voice.

Thor turned his face, his mouth full so that he could not answer her at once.

“He cannot read it for you.” Loki answered for him. “Thor’s common elvish is rubbish. His ancient elvish… I do not think he can speak a single word of it.”

Thor finally swallowed away his mouthful. 

“That is untrue. I know how to speak ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in ancient elvish.”

Loki snorted and Thor just shrugged.

“Why would I? It’s named ancient elvish because no elf or man speaks it anymore.”

“I speak it.”

“Yes brother… But you spoke each language in the realm well before you knew how to wield a sword.”

“I made other priorities… If that’s what you mean.”

“Well at least you could say ‘I yield’ in each possible language or dialect when you lost your fights.”

Loki kicked Thor under the table.

“At least I learned how to fight my battles in the end, you on the other end never made it past the languages available to all of us from the all-tongue.”

Thor huffed and sat back. 

“Well fine, you had me there brother.”

Jane smiled softly. 

“What’s in it?” she asked Loki this time.

“Spells.”

“Spells? Like, you read that stuff out loud and Eric would have hair again?” Darcy asked with an arched eyebrow.

“I have hair!”

“You can’t really call that hair Eric.”

“That’s not exactly what happens though.” Loki said with a bit of a grin. 

He did indeed love Darcy’s food but he was already getting full, finishing all this would take him all day. 

“Well, how then? I mean, scientifically it is quite a strange concept… Spells.” Jane muttered over her own food.

“Why is it strange?”

“Hello… Manipulating the laws of nature and physics by speaking words.” She waved her hand for emphasis. “It’s not all that logical is it?”

“Because you assume wrongly. I could read the words, and you would just have to take my word for them to be correct, but still nothing would happen.”

Thor smirked at Loki’s half insulted demeanour. No matter what shape Loki was in, nobody would insult his magic.

“But then how does it work?” 

“I doubt you’d understand…”

“Then break it down for us.”

Jane was so… pushy. He decided that he found it a less charming trait of hers. Loki sighed and leaned back, his stomach plaguing him because he’d eaten too much already. 

“Fine… at birth, each creature comes with a certain amount of a thing we know as Seiðr inside. Everyone, except you humans have it by birth.”

“How do you get it? Where from?”

Loki narrowed his eyes. Would she just let him speak?

“Radiation.” He answered shortly. “It manipulates a certain process in the body where it starts making this Seiðr, like a current through the body. Some creatures have more than others, depending how much radiation reaches the planet or realm where they come from. And there is always an individual difference too, due to fluctuations.”

“What does it do?” 

Loki thinned his lips and gave her a disapproving look.

“Will you keep interrupting me?”

“Sorry, sorry… keep going.”

“Seiðr is a law of your nature… One you simply must still discover in a way. It is a quiet one, which on small levels causes many of the events that you cannot explain in your quantum physics yet.”

Loki frowned for a moment, he did not know an awful lot of human science to elaborate on that.

“Creatures that possess Seiðr can manipulate it. When in raw ways it often comes out in the form of force, gusts of power. Simple hand-gestures can make for somewhat more intricate things, it can generate light, more focused beams of power. Spells are not necessarily the words to manipulate, they activate the proper places in the mind to bend Seiðr in a particular manner. The ancient elves were the first to experiment with this, that’s why spells are always in their language. Just blankly reading would not help, you need the associations of the text, what the words mean. And you must deliberately let the Seiðr flow.”

“That is really pretty cool.” Darcy mumbled.

“And humans never have it?” Jane just tried to keep up making notes.

“Not by birth no, most times.”

“But… there are humans that do? Have this Sei….Seiðr?”

“Oh yes, quite rarely. But there is one right here, sitting at the table.”

People looked at each other. Loki settled his eyes on Banner.

“What else would make you change appearance just like that?”

Bruce gave Loki a long look. 

“How?”

“Did you not experiment with radiation? That misuse of serum you had gave you a current of Seiðr. But since the human body is not built for it, you have these unfortunate effects from it.”

The doctor kept staring. 

“Can it be reversed?” 

Nobody had really ever come close to explaining his condition. It had always been a ‘sort of mutation from the radiation’. It was why he studied it so hard. But Loki and his people knew of this fifth law of nature. The missing link was it?

“No. Seiðr is an energy, it cannot be captured, measured, or removed. It travels through every fibre of your being. It’s a ghosting thing, not even a substance. I’m afraid your other man is quite irreversible.”

And then there was silence. Nobody spoke, there was just the clatter of plates and cutlery as Darcy cleared the table. Bruce considered it for a while.

“Then I guess the Hulk will have to behave…”  

 


	6. Full tilt diva much?

Chapter 6: Full tilt diva much?

 

After Loki had given his explanations on magic the silence returned to the room. Thor fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. Even he had understood little to nothing of what Loki had been saying, and it made him feel rather dumb sitting there, a warrior amongst scientists. He looked to his right, Jane was writing with a speed that made him suspect that the paper could catch fire any moment. 

Loki took his book back and checked the pages, looking if the human hadn’t ruined the paper with her carelessness. 

“What’s the book for? Spells, and I saw some other stuff. If you had to flee like Thor said, then why would you have time to pack that?” Jane asked, putting her pen back down as she had put down the last words.

“Thor has not told you about the Chitauri?” he asked, eyes momentarily flickering up from the book in his hands.

“He said that they won’t leave you alone, that they wounded you. I don’t really see how that explains it.” 

Loki closed the book and leaned on it. His arm hurt again, the numbness that the painkillers had brought was fading again.

“I packed because we had planned to travel to Midgard already. We are here to… seek out help, assistance in the permanent defeat of the Chitauri. They did not just hurt me out of plain boredom or revenge. They have, but this was emphasis. They demand of me to bring them the Tesseract. And Thor and I plan to trick them.”

Jane looked up to Thor.

“It’s true. My brother and I wish to ask man of iron to aide us in the destruction of the Chitauri.”

“You will commit genocide with your brother?”

“They are hardly people. They are out to kill all of the other races that live among the branches of Yggdrasil. They are not worth any moral consideration.” Loki answered before Thor could defend.

“Lady Jane. I do not belief in the extinction of races. But these creatures are a plague. Once they have set their sights on something they will fight until they have it, even if there is just one left.”

Banner put down his news-paper.

“So you were going to come here anyway, for Tony?”

“Yes.” Thor picked up the conversation as Loki stood to put away his book. “We were going to leave the morning after the banquet back home and ask his help. We just had to leave rather hurriedly yesterday.”

“What do you need Tony for? Is this not a thing about your Asgardian technologies and magic?”

Bruce felt that this was much more interesting than his paper.

“We need his ummm…. Loki?”

“Knowledge mostly. According to Thor S.H.I.E.L.D. has been using the Tesseract to create a second generation energy source for weaponry. It is the missing link I cannot accomplish in Asgard. We figured mr. Stark would have the most knowledge of these matters to help us convert the use of this technique to my Tesseract copy.” Loki explained, flipping pages as he sat down on the couch to at least get some work done again. 

“And what will this Tesseract be for? Why not just use the real one?”

“I plan to use the copy I am making to detonate as a bomb. If we can integrate the potential source of power from the actual Tesseract it can destroy their planet and everything on it, or their fleet, depending on where they are.”

“That is a little crude.”

“What they did made them deserve everything, they will come off easy like this!” Loki snapped around and then took a deep breath. “My apologies.”

He looked down and headed upstairs again. Jane looked at Thor in question.

“His arm was not the first they’ve done to him, nor is it the worst.”

Darcy turned around from her spot at the sink, looking as the door upstairs shut with a bit more force than necessary. She had met and seen Thor’s brother as a rather calm and polite person, Thor seemed the one with the temper issues. Even in his evil state Loki was a calm guy. Bruce had recognized it. That same way Loki had lashed out with insults when the Hulk had him cornered.

“You said yesterday that Loki had been under their mercy for some time…” Darcy started slowly, her eyes still on that door. “And you just said that the arm wasn’t the worst thing that happened. How long was he in their hands for exactly? Like, a week or a month?”

“About a year… and a month.” Thor answered reluctantly.

Darcy’s eyebrows rose high at that answer. More than a year. So much time, that wasn’t just trauma that was enough to make people suicidal, insane, desperate. Bruce put his face in his hands with a sigh. Wow, that was a long time.

“That is not good.” He said, understatement of the century.

Thor sighed and looked away as if he felt guilty.

“I know. But we could not find him, he was hidden from us and there was nothing we could do.”

Jane put her hand on Thor’s shoulder.

“It wasn’t your fault Thor. They made sure that you couldn’t find Loki. You are not too blame for that.”

Thor nodded slowly.

“I ummm I should see if he’s okay.”

“I’ll do it.” Banner said. “You look like you’re struggling enough already, and frankly, I think it would be better if he has someone other than family to talk to.”

Thor looked at Bruce. 

“I would be grateful.” He said with a small smile.

The doctor nodded and stood up. It was only a little effort for a friend. Besides, he believed that Loki was keeping things from Thor in an attempt to spare him from hurting with the knowledge of it.

He headed upstairs with slow steps. Trying to radiate rest before getting in there. Being calm himself would help for Loki’s mood too. He opened the door to the bedroom and looked inside.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Loki sat on the bed, his face scrunched up in an expression of ache, sweat on his forehead. He was, Bruce squinted to take a good look, making stitches. 

“Whoa, stop it right there.” He said, closing the door.

Loki looked up, startled. He hadn’t even noticed Banner’s presence yet. 

“You are ruining your arm like that.” Bruce walked around the bed and took the needle, cutting off the thread quickly with the pair of scissors. 

Loki’s fingers were just shaking with tremors, he was hurting beyond any form of healthy.

“What on earth were you even thinking?” the doctor asked flustered.

He opened his bag to take out the phial of sedatives quick as he could. Loki looked at Banner as he got all worked up over what he’d just been doing.

“This one keeps opening, it needs stitches.”

He failed to see the problem here, he was only fixing an inconvenience, trying not to bleed out.

“But why would you do that yourself? I am a doctor! I could have made good ones, and you wouldn’t be shaking with adrenaline you moron!”

Loki looked at Banner with slightly widened eyes. Why would he get so angry? Why would he even care? The doctor prepared the syringe quickly and injected it without asking this time. 

“Look at this, you actually made it worse like this.” He put on his glasses and a pair of tweezers, mumbling disapprovingly as he took out the threads that had already been sewn in. 

When it was all gone again Banner calmed again somewhat, remembering why he’d come up here in the first place. 

“You have some real issues with what they did to you in that past year don’t you?”

He started to sterilize new thread to make proper stitches with. He could just as well, now that he was here anyway. 

“Who would not, I lived a year in constant pain.”

“Then why would you keep hurting yourself now that it is not necessary?” Bruce asked mildly reprimanding.

“Because I can’t stop it…” Loki said with a very quiet tone. “I can’t go without it…”

He let out a bit of a snort, as if it was funny.

“When I don’t hurt, there is this strange buzz in my body, it’s waiting for the hit. Preparing for it, everything is put on sharp and it won’t go unless the hurt comes.”

Bruce watched in horror.

“How can you live like that?” he blurted the words out before he realized what he said.

Loki looked at Bruce, studying that abhorred face for a moment.

“You just accept that it is how it works and deal with it.”

Banner shook his head.

“No! That is not okay. That is not how it works! You can’t just live with having to put yourself through this to kill a buzz! That is not okay Loki!”

The trickster frowned a little and made that tense move again wherein he got ready to run if necessary. He was mistaking Banner’s anger for…. Anger to him. No, he was not angry with the god. But Loki did not really seem to get the difference. He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh, getting a grip on himself again.

“I’m sorry, that was not meant to make you feel afraid.”

“I am not afraid of you.” Loki interjected, trying to deny that dent in his pride.

“Of course not…” Bruce dismissed quickly. “But I mean what I say. You cannot go on like this. It’s not healthy.”

“We are not fragile like you Midgardians are.”

“Jesus Loki. You are supposed to be intelligent! Then how can you fail to see that this is not good for you. This is destructive. What if the buzz gets worse? The pain gets worse? What if you have an infection and get sick? Does Thor even know about this?”

Loki grunted and leaned his head against the headboard of the bed. Bruce grabbed a few cotton balls to dab the blood that welled up away from the fresh stitches.

“He doesn’t. And I do not want him too either.” The trickster looked at Banner’s work, his arm never feeling the needle pull at his skin. “As for your concerns. I heal quick, and sickness is not something I succumb to easily.”

He held the tweezers as the doctor gestured for him to hold them as he got the scissors.

“But you are right. It is hell to live like this, pain is not something I wish to know for the rest of my life, at least not on a daily basis like this.” 

Bruce replaced the bandages before taking a seat at the desk chair to properly be able to talk with the god.

“Have you found no other way to stop that feeling? The buzz as you name it?”

“Your sedatives have… But it’s only replacing one problem with another.”

“Quite. You’d go from a pain-addiction to painkiller addictions. Look, your real problem is that your body has been producing all sorts of extra hormones to deal with the pain you felt for more than a year. Due to the long expanse of time, your levels of adrenaline and such are completely off the charts. You have that annoying feeling because of them, and it won’t go away until the hormones made have done their work.”

He had wondered for a while if such a thing was even possible. 

“You need to rehabilitate from it. You need someone to help you bring the steady levels back.”

“How?” Loki asked. “I tried. Tried ignoring it, but it simply won’t go. It gets worse and worse the longer I keep fighting it.”

“Which is perfectly normal. You just need someone that can help you to slowly reduce the dosage of your hurt. Bit by bit, until you no longer need it. It works the same way with most drug-addictions Loki. But nobody has the willpower to do that all by themselves.”

“And you would help me with that then?” Loki sounded mildly hopeful.

“If you would want me to then yes. Of course.”

“And you would not say any of this to Thor?”

“Well, I would recommend you to be honest with him, but no, I would not go and tell him myself. I would leave the choice of that to you.”

Loki nodded and put his shirt back on when his arm didn’t feel so stiff anymore. 

“I accept.” He said, looking away. “As long as this stays between us.”

Bruce nodded. In all honesty he would say he was relieved at that.

“You have my word.”

He stood up and threw away the cotton-balls and left-over thread. 

“Will you follow me back downstairs again? Your brother would be put at ease if you would. He is worried that you have a melt-down over the Chitauri.”

“Thor is always worried.” Loki sighed in annoyance.

“He means well.”

“I know…” the trickster stood and pulled at his shirt a little.

Banner let Loki get the door and followed after him. When they got out again Bruce immediately noticed that Selvig was no longer among the rest. He had probably found something to do elsewhere. Thor impatiently waited at the bottom of the staircase.

“What took you so long brother?”

“I had asked dr. Banner to give some more attention to one of my wounds. It has been hurting since the moment I woke up.” Loki said without as much as a second thought.

“I’m fine now Thor. Don’t worry.” He patted his brother’s shoulder.

He was going to elaborate to make his point come across, but suddenly there was a horrible racket outside. A hum that was almost unbearably loud before a sleek small plane skidded to a halt on the parking lot. It did not need an explanation as to who owned it. If the hellishly loud music echoing from the vehicle would not betray it, then the gold and red paint-job would have. And for extra emphasis the Stark Industries logo was printed clear on the side. 

Finally the noise of screeching guitars was turned off and a door slid open at the front, steps automatically appeared so that the Tony Stark could make his smooth entrance as he got out with a huge grin on his face. 

“Now that my friends, is how you make an entrance.” He said with a bit of a bow.

Bruce put his face in his hands. He could have known Tony would pull one of those tricks. He could have known it the very moment that the man had told him to stay put. 

“See that Reindeer Games? That’s how you make an opening. Like a proper king.”

Loki arched up an eyebrow. The guy was not even slightly put off by the fact that he was even there. Banner must have told him, but still. Stark simply didn’t seem to care.

“King you say?” he started with a huff. “Wasn’t the term you used something else? Let me think, oh yes, a full tilt diva was it?” 

Tony waved him off.

“Same thing, same thing. Both are horribly arrogant but you can’t help to love ‘em anyway.”

He walked past them, into the building and most importantly the kitchen. 

“Please tell me you have some proper pick me ups in your fridge.”

Loki studied the other with narrowed eyes. Out of all humans it was Tony Stark that he really had trouble figuring out. Did he simply not care that Loki was there? Or had Bruce maybe passed on some of his weaknesses to be used against him? His eyes quickly shifted to Banner. He did not seem like he would do that. Loki usually was a good judge of character.

Tony opened a cabinet and let out a relieved ‘ah’ as he managed to find a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels somewhere at the back of it. Jane looked at the man, not sure if she was pissed for him going through their stuff unasked or amused with his weird charm. Stark emptied half of the remaining liquid first before he sat down on the kitchen-table.

“So, please tell me Brucey, how you came to babysit two norse gods, in the house of miss Overeager scientist and friends. I reckon it is quite the story.”

“I am not overeager!” Jane protested. “I’m just driven.”

“Whatever you wish.”

Bruce folded his hands together.

“Honestly, it really isn’t much of a story from my side. I was called in to fix up Loki’s arm, like I said. Thor and his brother were already here. They’ve fled their home-world. But there isn’t much more I know. Except that, as I also mentioned, it involves those aliens that invaded New York about two years ago.”

“Your pets.” Tony added with a pointed finger to Loki.

“I was never in charge of them.” 

“You looked in charge.”

“I was working under the same orders, the same leader as they were. I was simply the scapegoat, or the face you would have in mind with the invasion. The real ring-lord is still out there Stark.”

Tony narrowed his eyes for a moment and then turned to Thor.

“Should I believe him?” he asked straight out.

“His words are true man of iron. My brother was never their leader, he was their prisoner.”

The man let out a whine.

“It’s a little convenient isn’t it? Your brother not being responsible for mass murder.”

“I was responsible Stark. But I was not the one that ordered for it.” Loki said in pure honesty.

Tony squinted.

“Tony, I believe Loki as well. I saw his wounds and I got to see a different side of him as well… Trust me, I do not think someone can lie to that extent.” 

Stark stood, walking up to Loki, scrutinizing him in silence. 

“You…. Look like absolute shit. ” he concluded.

Loki let out a snort and looked away.

“How kind of you to notice.” He mumbled sarcastically.

Tony leaned on the table-top. 

“Okay, for now it will do.” He decided eventually. 

He grabbed the bottle and headed to the door again. 

“Sleepover party at Stark tower I guess.”

Bruce sighed in relief and stood up. 

“We’ll be right there Tony, thank you.” 

He nodded to Thor and Loki before heading upstairs again to retrieve his bags from there. Loki followed that plan and gathered the contents of his bag again. Thor turned to Jane.

“I am grateful that you let us stay. I am grateful for your trust in me. And we will see each other soon. I promise that.”

The young woman smiled.

“That’s what friends are for Thor. Good luck… And ummm, just be careful. Don’t trust your brother too much. He is a trickster after all, and well. You never know.”

Thor grimaced.

“He is not lying to me Jane. Loki is more than lies! I am god of thunder but I do not take bad weather and lightning to each place I visit do I?”

“I know… Just, don’t let him manipulate you when he would be lying.”

Thor did not answer. He just gave her a curt nod and joined his brother at his side again. Loki was staring at Tony’s jet, only noticing Thor when he put a hand on his shoulder.

“What is it now brother? You are thinking so hard that I can practically see that mind working.”

“I do not get him…”

“I do not understand what you-”

“-Stark. I cannot figure him out.” Loki looked at Thor. “He really does not seem to care a single bit about who I am. About New York and everything around it.” 

“Maybe he simply chooses not to judge.”

“But he is indifferent to it. He treats me like the little brother that his friend always drags along. He just makes conversation about things like this is all a joke.”

“That is Tony in a nutshell I’m afraid.” Bruce joined them.

“He is just that kind of man. He looks at the world as one big challenge, a race. If he crashes then it’s over, but he figures it’s worth it over living too careful. He has really gotten worse in that since Afghanistan.”

“What happened to him in Afghanistan?” Loki asked, suddenly quite interested.

“Something not too unlike what happened to you.” Bruce answered. “Since then his whole attitude revolves around the ‘you only live once’ mentality that often comes with that kind of trauma.” 

Loki furrowed his brow.

“You mean that, nearly dying… made him indifferent to danger?”

“In a very basic way, yes.”

“That makes no sense at all.” Loki turned towards Banner. “You humans are so illogical.”

Bruce snorted and shrugged.

“We think the same of Thor and your people’s habits at moments.”

“Fair enough.”

Tony walked into the building again, an exaggerated expression of irritation on his features. 

“What are you guys waiting for? A red carpet to roll out?”

“Well, us divas do love our drama.” Loki quipped.

“Oh shut up Rudolph.” Stark growled a little. “We can go, if you would please move your asses on board. Thank you.”

He left again, not waiting for them to follow. Slowly the three of them trailed after the other man.

“Who by the Norns is Rudolph?” Loki mumbled as he put the bag of books and equipment over his shoulder.

“Long story. Tony will probably elaborate on it sometime soon.”

They got into the plane, none of them were even the least bit surprised to find the interior of it more than luxurious. Everything was there to make this a lounge-room in the air. Tony held his arms wide from his spot in the chair.

“What do you think?”

“Well it’s very…” Bruce paused. “You.”

 Tony pointed at Banner.

“That is what I wanted to hear.” He looked to the cockpit. “Jarvis, take us up.”

“Of course sir.” the cool computer voice said. “And may I make you aware that we have a war-criminal on board?”

Tony looked at the others with a grin.

“Yeah Jarvis. I know. I just happen to owe the man a drink.”

“And where are we going sir?”

“Back home.” 


	7. Slumber party

Flying back to New York made time for two things. For Loki to explain what they were here for, and for Thor to realize that he did not like flying if he was not doing so himself. Tony stood with a sigh when Loki stopped talking. 

“So, just to sum it up… You ask me to assist you in building another cube of destruction, madness and space-travel… Only this one has to explode and be capable of genocide.”

Loki sighed and looked out of the window.

“I know how it sounds yes, but you are correct. It’s what I ask.” 

Tony opened the door to the mini-bar and grabbed a bottle from it. He looked up, tapping on the countertop as he thought about it for a while.

“What did you do with the arm?”

He poured himself a glass of scotch. 

“I already told you that they used pain to make their demands clear.” 

Tony shrugged and downed the amber liquid in one go.

“Tell me what it was.”

Bruce shifted in his seat.

“Tony, I don’t think that’s really relevant.”

Tony poured another glass and put the tumbler on the cherry-wood table in front of Loki. 

“Tell me.”

He gently nudged the drink in Loki’s direction but did not move to walk away. 

“You see, there are three things people can’t cheat or pretend; proper love, intense pain and trauma.” Tony said. “I could grab you, and the wounds are probably real, so you will hurt… Sure. But who says you did not do it yourself? I would say that you are not exactly sane.”

“You will take that back!” Thor grumbled angrily.

“No.” Tony answered. “I dare say that I am experienced enough with trauma by now, I will know it if you lie about how you got that. So go and tell me about what happened.”

Loki sat back and sighed. He would much rather not.

“I don’t think it’s needed, I will vouch for him. He isn’t lying.” Bruce explained.

Tony waved him off, keeping eyes on Loki. 

“He loves talking hm? Talk.”

Loki gave him a glare and sagged back in the chair, looking away again and closing his eyes.

“Fine, where to start?” he pinched the bridge of his nose.

He felt his gut twist.

“But not with Thor here, he doesn’t have to hear.”

Tony stood straight again.

“Not necessary, you don’t have to tell me, you already passed.”

He grinned a little and pointed his finger at the god.

“Tricked you.”

He walked back to his seat, practically feeling Loki’s glare follow him. 

“Don’t be such bad sport, I had to know if you were shitting me.”

The plane slowed a bit and Tony laughed as Loki huffed and grabbed the glass that Tony had put in front of him. 

“Not angry with me, are you?”

“No. But you owe me an answer now. Will you help me?”

Tony narrowed his eyes.

“Do you even understand the risk I’m going to take for the world if I do this?”

Loki clenched his teeth, that wasn’t starting out so very well.

Tony sighed and tapped at the armrest of his chair. It wasn’t often that he took a moment to contemplate, he was more of an impulses type of guy.

“Man of iron, I hereby swear that both I and Loki shall honour your trust. Upon our honour, our family and our lives.”

Tony barely noticed the plane touching down on the helipad. Bruce looked out the window.

“You already restored the tower? Impressive.”

Tony hummed and chewed on the rim of his fingernails. 

“I can’t decide now. I know they gave you a deadline. But no, can’t decide now.” 

The man got up and the plane-door opened.

“Not until I know for sure that there’s more than bat-shit crazy tyrant in that head.”

Loki looked up.

“We’re going to have a slumber-party.” Tony grinned.

Bruce snorted and started to shake his head, Thor looked a bit confused.

“Are you kidding me?!” Loki exclaimed.

He stood up.

“I do not have time for jokes and fun. In a month I must deliver the Tesseract, or so they must believe. You cannot see this as a game.”

Tony turned around, clearly a little taken aback. 

“Calm down Rudolph, let go… This is the offer you get. We will be here, all together, and when I trust you I will give you the help you want. Simple, simple.”

Loki closed his eyes and cursed. He did not like people messing with his plans, he did not like set-backs, changes, or such stupidities as these. 

“Hey Thor, I got a few new parts in the storage compartment of the plane, would you please use your bear-arms to bring them in?” Tony asked.

Thor complied immediately and left.

“Can’t your digital butler do that for you?” Loki asked sharply.

“He can… But I wanted to keep Thor away for a moment.” 

Loki turned to put his full attention on the little man.

“Why is that?”

“If you do not get this job done in time… What will happen? You seem very anxious, very panicked, when it comes to anything that might risk you to miss it.” Tony stared back and gestured for Loki to sit back down again. 

Loki slowly settled back in the plane seat. He did not like to bare the weaknesses in his soul, but sacrifices had to be made, he had to compromise and show some good will.

“I could not tell you in exact terms…. But they have known me and held me long enough to know the exact limits between me begging for death and actual death.”

Tony gulped a little, feeling that cold creeping feeling of recognition. And he could guess that Loki’s pain-borders were more impressive than his so… 

“So… would they kill you?”

Loki shook his head, the atmosphere between them was thick and dense. Both knew torture, one did not need to explain the horrors and psychological ache and damage of it to the other.

“No, they wouldn’t… It’s very fun for them to have something to kick around. To make it squirm… They’ll drive me insane and…” he looked outside. “And make me kill my family.”

He watched Thor wobble around a bit as he brought the steel-plates and equipment inside, almost crashing against the glass front of the tower before Jarvis opened the door.

Tony looked at Loki for a while. It was really hard to tell if this guy was lying. Every word seemed true, but then again the man was named God of Lies for some reasons.

“How would they make you do that?” 

Loki swirled his finger over the rim of the empty tumbler on the table-top.

“How sane would you still be after months of torture?”

“I would probably be dead after one month… There’s only so much a man can take.”

Tony tried to make his remark quipped and snarky. But oh he felt something coil in his stomach. Just with the idea, just the slight imagination of it.

“Well, you are only human… But try to imagine it, and you will have your answer about the possibility. I would never know, I would be too far gone to even recognize myself in the mirror.” He grabbed the bag and put it over his shoulder. “And I would rather avoid that.”

And maybe he would regret that, but Tony believed him right then.

“Let’s make a deal.”

Loki looked over his shoulder, hopeful.

“What deal?”

“I’m going to be helping you… If you promise to be nice and play along when I ask.”

“How you mean play along?”

“Stark life isn’t gloom Rudolph, if we will do this, we do it my way, which means I want to have a good time, and I want to get to know you, see what you’re up to, who you really are. Accept it or find another genius to help you.” 

Loki inclined his head. 

“Fine, as long as you do not expect me to waste my time.”

“Can we at least try a smile with that Reindeer games?”

“My name is Loki.” The trickster huffed.

“Normal names are so boring.”

“In that case I will be naming you little man.”

“That’s not cool. That’s not a good nickname, I do not approve!” Tony growled.

Loki snickered and grinned.

“Touchy touchy… Two can play at your games Stark.”

“But it’s only fun if I do it.”

“I’d just give you a taste of your own medicine. Don’t be such bad sport Anthony.”

“Uh-uh, not Anthony! NO, out of line, bad, really bad. Don’t you say that again Rudolph.”

“Who IS Rudolph?” 

“The red-nosed reindeer? Christmas? Come on, how can you not know that?” 

Together they started walking again. Loki frowned.

“That is a stupid comparison, my nose is not red in the slightest.”

Thor looked back from his spot in the back of the room. Tony and Loki seemed to get along a little. 

Good, Loki had been so terrified of his reaction. He put the plating down with the rest of the stuff that stood in the corner. It was impressive that Tony had already repaired the tower. Humans were slow workers, but to reconstruct the damage the Chitauri and Loki had done in this amount of time. Thor was impressed. Tony immediately put on some lighting in the lounge-room. He had yet to restore the norse-god shaped indentation in the floor that the Hulk had left. But that was purely because he actually found it a rather amusing decoration. But apart from that he was rather pleased with the way he had managed to bring back the tower’s features. He had made the room as it had been, glass, reflective black tiles, a sunken compartment in the far corner with couches and carpet, the best of the best of course. The glass front so he could look out over New York at night. The green marble-work of table-tops in his liquor-bar. It was the vision he had had again. 

“Well, there’s plenty of space as you can see, go on ahead, up the swirly stairs are a couple of bedrooms. Take your pick, I don’t care.”

Bruce nodded and eagerly headed upstairs to be first. Apparently he was rather fond of one of the rooms. Loki looked around and thinned his lips as he saw the crater in the floor.

“You didn’t think to repair that?”

“Why would I? It’s rather amusing I thought, unique even.”

Loki shook his head and walked on, trying to see if something else had changed since he had last been here. 

“What’s in the bag Rudolph?” Tony asked when neither of the Norse brothers were moving up.

“Things I’ll need for the copy.” 

The man held out a hand.

“Can I see it?”

Loki looked at Tony with raised eyebrows, for emphasis the millionaire made grabby hands. The demi-god rolled his eyes and put the bag on the oaken table in the middle of the room. 

“Whatever you do, do not open any of the bottles or boxes.”

Tony shot forward to inspect the inside of the bag and Loki gestured for Thor to follow him upstairs. The steps of the stairs sounded like smooth stone had to sound, softly padding under their boots. 

“Are you alright Loki?” Thor asked. “Don’t you need to rest? Sleep a bit maybe?”

Loki looked back and sighed a little.

“Thor… Please stop. I am not a child anymore, I am not mortally injured, I am not dying, I am just fine.”

Thor caught up and put his hand on Loki’s shoulder. 

“Look at me.”

Loki sighed and slowly set his eyes on Thor’s blue ones.

“You’re too pale. I know of your urgency, I know about the pressure. I know. And I will do whatever I can to make sure that nothing will happen to you. But Loki… I think that we must both face it…”

Thor paused and sighed a little.

“This might be the last month of normal life you’ll have.” Thor’s voice wavered a little.

“And I’d be damned if I let you destroy yourself in that time.”

Loki quietly stared at Thor. He was taking this harder than he was.

“Thor… I’m not destroying myself. I’m not.” He smiled a little.

“Yes you are. You have pushed this work, pushed your healing. You are stressed, agitated, nervous. Brother… Calm yourself. We will all help. We will make it happen. And do you even have an idea of what will happen when you deliver your work?”

“No but…” Loki sighed and swallowed. “I- I want… I just want it to end… I just want it to be over.”

He felt his eyes sting. Thor smiled faintly and patted Loki’s arm, rubbing up his brother’s back.

“And you’ll get it done with. We will all help you, assist you… But take some time every now and then to just enjoy yourself and let go. Promise?”

“Promise.” Loki answered with a soft voice. 

Thor sniffed loudly and let Loki go. Upstairs was a round floor, built around the stairwell. There were six doors, probably to separate bedrooms. One of them was open, probably Banner’s doing. 

Loki walked to the opposite room and pushed the door open. The bedrooms Tony had built up here were more than just impressive. When Loki pushed the door open he was met with a rather large room, the floor covered in soft white rug, a large four poster bed in ebony wood, two person with ease. There were a few dressers tucked in the corner facing the door in the same ebony wood, a desk on the other end with chair, and wall-length windows in the last wall opposing the bed. There were light curtains tied up at both ends. Loki walked to the windows and looked out, the light of day was fading slowly, the sun was dipping below the sky-scrapers of New York. He looked around the city, he had left his mark on it, buildings were still damaged, windows shattered at places. He heard a bang and the floor shook. He heard Banner and Thor hurry out of their rooms, but he just sighed and shook his head before walking after them. The smell that greeted them was that of burnt hair and alcohol. He came down and as expected caught Stark with a layer of soot on his face and arms.

“I did warn you not to open anything, did I not?”

Tony gave him a panicked look.

“It exploded in my face Rudolph. I could have fucking burned something!”

“Do not name me Rudolph, Anthony.”

“It. Exploded. In. My. Face.”

“It’s not harmful, there’s a lot of noise, but it’s inflammable and does not get hot. And you defied my order. So, I did warn you did I not?”

Tony grumbled and walked away to wipe his face clean. Bruce walked away and looked at the table to check out the things that were stalled out there.

“So this is your copy?” he asked when he saw the cube. “It looks rather convincing to me.”

“No offense, but your human senses are not as developed to magic as other creatures’ are.”

Thor snickered at Tony as the man washed his face and grumbled under his breath.  

Bruce inspected some of the phials and shook a few boxes.

“What is all this for then?”

“You saw Tony right? I’ll be integrating the shockwave intensities in the cube. Only, I’m one down now, thanks a lot.”

Tony walked back with a towel still in his hands.

“I just wanted to analyse the compartments!” he grabbed the empty phial up from the ground. “Did we get anything Jarvis?”

“Not yet sir. I must analyse a few things from the moment of combustion still.”

Loki grabbed the crystal flask back and put it with the rest.

“Can I grab this for a night?” Tony asked, tapping his fingers on the cube. “I’ll be careful with it, promise.”

Loki nodded and watched Tony run off with it again. Bruce opened one book and looked at the elvish scribble in it.

“This is really beautiful writing…” he said as he traced his fingers over the lettering. “Is it your handwriting?”

“Hardly, my spoken elvish is rather well-developed. But one can immediately discern my writing from a real elf. It takes many ages to learn it like this.” Loki looked over Banner’s shoulder.

Bruce flipped through the delicate pages and looked at the detailed ink-work. Loki smiled a little at the interest both Tony and Bruce had in his stuff. He had not had that at home. Aesir did not care an awful lot for other cultures and things. Thor sat at the table and pouted a little, he felt surrounded by scientists. He felt like he was easily the dumbest person in the room and he hated that feeling. 

Loki sat down facing him.

“Why the long face Thor?” he asked with a bit of a grin.

“I feel stupid.” His brother answered with a frown. “Because they’re all smart like you.”

“I’m much smarter than them.” Loki huffed. “And you are not stupid, you’re simply not a scholar, it’s not your thing. It’s better, if everyone were the same the world would have ceased to exist as we know it.” 

“Still… I don’t like to be at the bottom of something.”

Loki snorted and stood up from the table.

“Then you should have listened to our tutors better.”

“They were boring old man with no sense of humour.”

Now Bruce snorted as well before he returned his focus to the pages. Tony returned from the side-room he’d disappeared to a few moments ago.

“Are you guys hungry yet?” he asked with his phone in hand. “Because I have to eat cheeseburgers tonight so very much.”

“Oh no you don’t.” sounded a woman’s voice from the elevator.

Tony almost dropped his phone and he signed Loki to fucking disappear before Pepper could come into the lounge room. Thor shoved Loki into a corner.

“Turn invisible, quick.”

Loki was going to protest. Thor instead pulled the curtain across Loki’s form and patted him again.

“Hurry up and don’t argue with me.”

Pepper walked in, waving a microwave box with food above her head. She stopped in her tracks.

“Oh, Bruce, hey! And Thor, why are you talking to the curtains?” she grinned a little. “Tony… Why didn’t you say they were coming over, I’d have made more food!” 

She walked on and put the box on the countertop before giving Tony a quick peck on the cheek.

“It uhhh… was kind of spontaneous. Yeah.” 

Pepper nodded and shook Bruce’s hand for a greeting, moving on to greet Thor as well.

“All the way from Asgard Thor?”

“Yes… I was with Jane. Make sure she was moving on well.” 

“Oh welcome.” She patted Thor’s arm. “I umm, made pasta, but it’s not quite enough if you two are staying over. I could make some fresh?”

Tony’s eyes lit up. Cheeseburgers were good, but he could easily forget all about them if it meant eating Pepper’s pasta.

“That would be most kind Miss Potts.” 

“Again Bruce, just Pepper, please.” 

It fell silent and there were a lot of awkward smiles when Pepper looked between them. Her smile faded and she let out a snort.

“Wow, what’s the tenseness here? You guys are radiating it. Hiding something?”

“We hadn’t expected your shining cheerful appearance here that’s all.” Tony grinned. “Care for a glass of wine?”

“Oh my, you are being overly kind, something is definitely off.”

She walked to the kitchen part to see if Tony still had some actual fresh food in the fridge to cook with. As soon as she had turned her back Tony starting pointing madly for Thor to send Loki upstairs. Thor patted the curtain and it moved before Loki flickered back in sight again.

“What?” he hissed lowly.

Thor pointed at the still clueless woman and then upstairs.

“Ah, Tony how are you supposed to live with all this…. Garbage…..” her voice died out as she had turned around and caught Loki before he could disappear again. “In your fridge.”

All the men watched her anxiously as she just stared at Loki. Thor slowly moved himself between Pepper and Loki, just in case. 

“I have the feeling that I’m missing some context here.” She eventually said when her brain and mouth could connect again. “A LOT of context.”

She finally looked away.

“What the hell Tony?” 

“What the hell me? Why me?” Tony asked, wildly swaying his arms at Thor and Bruce.

“It’s your tower isn’t it?”

“We asked his help.” Loki answered. “I asked his help.”

Pepper looked at Loki, then Tony. Tony just shrugged. And then back to Loki.

“Why ummm… why don’t we just go and buy better stuff for my fridge downtown and I’ll give you the whole story hm?” Tony started nudging Pepper to the elevator.

“Good move Rudolph, good move.”

“My name is NOT Rudolph!”

“Tatatata I don’t care.”

The man pushed Pepper into the elevator. 

“If you guys get hungry please feel free to eat whatever hasn’t rotten yet.”

Pepper tried to turn, clearly having a few questions she wanted to ask, but Tony kept nudging her and steering away from the three remaining men. Once the elevator doors closed again Thor turned to Loki with an annoyed frown.

“Why did you take off the invisibility charm? That was stupid!”

“You got me out of there, I thought it was safe.”

“I was going to get you upstairs, you should not have revealed yourself!”

“She was going to find out sooner or later was she not? I do not feel like hiding all the time, I reckon I do not have to fear some frail Midgardian woman.”

“Ohhh… Don’t let her hear that or you would sincerely have to fear.” Bruce snickered, daring to take a look in the fridge.

“Ah, among several domestic and exotic types of mould we still have the choice of cheese, pickles and a mango chutney…”

Loki wrinkled his nose. 

“No thank you.”

“Or…. we have a box of eggs, possibly rotten and bacon strips…”

“I’d rather stick around for fresh food. I trust the man’s technical capabilities, not his culinary mishaps.” Loki crossed his arms.

Bruce shrugged in half agreement and sat down in the chair in the far corner of the lounge room.

“Let’s just hope Tony gets miss Potts talked down soon enough so we will not poison ourselves in hunger then.”


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: So it begins…

 

Nobody would later say that they weren’t anxious for the state in which Tony and Pepper would return. She could be enraged, feel betrayed. Maybe she broke up with Tony and this was finally the last straw. Especially Loki did not feel easy with it. He had been trying to read and highlight spells but it was as if he suddenly could not read elvish anymore due to the distractions. The weather sure had taken a change to match their moods. Loki had initially thought that it was Thor’s doing. But the man himself was slumped on the couch, finally sleeping off some severe worry and tenseness. Loki stood up and put the book back on the table. Bruce was watching TV, some show that did not make a lot of sense really. Loki paced a little, not wishing to wake Thor. Bruce gestured for him to come over and he sat down next to him on the cushioned floor.

“How are you today?”

“Fine.” Loki immediately said.

“So that buzz isn’t back yet? I want you to keep me informed of the timeframe wherein it’s returning.”

“It is back. But not far enough that it makes me want to fix it.”

Bruce nodded and turned off the TV. They sat on the floor in silence then, the room half dark. The lights over the kitchen were on, but where they sat they had left them off so Thor could sleep.

“When you attacked us… New York… You really, really hated Thor. Why was that? I mean, you look close now, you trust him with your life and he seems unconditional towards you.”

Loki smiled a bit and looked at his older brother, sprawled over the couch in exhaustion.

“I did that because I love him. I put him first.” He said. “I needed Thor to be strong. I needed him to defeat me. I needed him to have distance, to stay away. All because, that way the Chitauri could not do to him what they did to me. I would never forgive myself for that… But Thor and I have had difficulties. In the past. I used them to push Thor away, but always because I loved him more than anything.”

Bruce watched as Loki started picking at his clothes. It was a bit odd to watch him sit there in his human clothes, without the gold and the cape and the screaming. He looked so normal. Like that bullied kid from a few grades down. Who was too smart for his own good and who was mocked by people all the time.

“That is quite the sacrifice.”

Loki snorted a bit.

“Well, as you might have read in your books of myth, I have done quite a few things in my time that were not so appreciated. Call it retribution, seeing the light, whichever you see fit.”

Bruce shook his head.

“No, you shouldn’t see it like that, you should count it as a really good thing, no matter what came before.”

Loki nodded slowly and placed his chin on his knees. Just when they ran out of things to talk about they heard the elevator ping. Tony came out, in a heavy discussion with Pepper, but it was not about Loki, and that really relieved him quite a lot.

“No, you are going to poison yourself idiot! You are like a terrible child sometimes Tony!”

Food. They were talking about food instead.

“There is enough alcohol in my system to clear germs from my system.”

“That isn’t exactly an improvement Tony! You’ll get yourself killed.” She put down a basket of fresh vegetables and meat before looking into the lounge-room.

“And what are you doing all hermit-like in the dark?”

“Thor is sleeping.” Loki said when she was about to flip on the switch. “He has been much too busy worrying over me, please let him sleep for a moment.”

And much to his surprise Pepper just nodded at him and gave Tony one more whack upside the head before she started to grab things to make them a meal. She wasn’t asking him anything or giving him a glare… She was just making them dinner. Tony turned to the cube then, talking to Jarvis and letting tests run at it. Not much longer a smell started to float around the room that made Loki’s stomach groan with a mighty need to eat whatever it was that smelled so delicious. Bruce couldn’t help but snort a bit when he saw Loki sniffing the air longingly.

“You will get to eat it, don’t worry.”

“What makes you think she will allow me?”

“Common decency. She had either told you to get the hell out or not cooked if she did not want you to eat it. It’s kind of how common decency works in the first place.” Banner gave Loki a weird look.

“Not where we live.” Loki said as he stood to wake Thor.

He gently nudged his shoulder, trying to gently pry him from the dream he was having. Thor yawned and turned on his side.

“Goodmorning brother. I will just be 5 minutes.”

Loki snorted and kneeled to eye-level.

“It’s still evening. Miss Potts has returned and it is about dinnertime. I thought I would do well to wake you for that.”

“Food is always a promising excuse.” Thor said with a light smile as he slowly opened his eyes.

Loki still did not look good. His hair was cut as it had once been. As the prince that left behind Asgard as a boy. As his brother. But he still looked so wary and wild. Estranged.  He put his hand to Loki’s face and let his thumb run over the way too pale skin of his brother’s cheek. 

“You must promise me to eat well and sleep well as long as we reside here. Or so help me brother I shall drag you there much like mother did as a child.”

There it was. The gentle smile that graced Loki’s face so much more than the maniacal grin that had made his little brother so deranged. This was his baby brother.

“Then I guess I better oblige for my own good.” He murmured.

Thor sat up then and allowed Loki to try to disentangle his hair a little. Once Loki gave up he hoisted himself to his feet with a mighty huff. The food certainly smelled very good. Nothing like what he smelled at home, but good nonetheless. Pepper put down a steaming hot pan of pasta when she was done.

“Dinner!” She called.

And apparently it was important food to Tony because he pretty much dropped the Tesseract copy to make it to the table. Loki and Thor took a seat as well and when even Bruce had put down his book Pepper handed out plates with food. Pasta, so it proved, was a one pan dish. A pastry of sorts, in this case shaped into curious tubes that Pepper called Penne. And they were tossed in a sauce made with tomato and meat, some vegetable as well. It gave Loki the notion that it was meant as a very comforting, hearty dish. And it worked quite fine. There was a comfortable silence during their dinner, the only sounds came from cutlery on plates and Tony’s not so charming slurping noises as he threatened to spill some sauce over his lips.

Pepper righted her back after a while.

“So… Loki… Do you think the Earth is in danger with you staying here?” she asked blatantly.

“Uh… Well not directly no. I asked our father if he would cast magic to hide us from prying eyes. So they should be unable to see us here. But it’s possible that if they have suspicions they could turn their eyes on others. For example, as you sit here looking at me, they could be looking through your eyes. And they would see or hear nothing because of father’s magic, luckily. But it would probably prompt them to send a scouting group or a few spies…”

He sighed and rubbed over his face.

“So I can’t guarantee there won’t be trouble. But it won’t be a fleet. Nothing you haven’t handled before right?” he said with a bit of a sheepish grin.

Tony let out a bit of a snort.

“I looked at your cube, it really doesn’t have the same readings as the real thing quite yet. I mean, when it comes to radiation and energy levels-”

“I only started 2 days ago. If I had the time this would take me a year at least.”

Pepper nodded as she cleared the table.

“Well, Tony explained the situation to me, so I support his decision to keep you here and try to assist you. But if you ruin it and betray us with a stupid scheme, I will have you know that Earth is not going to let Thor take you back to Asgard, and you won’t be sitting on velvet cushions in a quaint little room in something you call imprisonment.”

“Pepper!” Tony called out. “Cut the guy some slack woman.”

“I cut you some slack all the time, and you go ahead and poison yourself. I’m just making sure he knows the consequences.”

Loki inclined his head and held Thor’s arm when he stood to protest in Loki’s name.

“I understand. I can only give you my word and my thanks for the benefit of your doubt.”

He spoke calmly and then stood.

“However, I think I should go take some rest, my head feels light.”

Thor eyed Loki worriedly, and it made the other roll his eyes.

“Loki… You should retire to bed immediately.”

“Is that not what I just said?”

Thor still gave him a grave look, but in the corner of his eye Loki noticed Tony’s eyes focus on the side of his face with an almost comical face. Pepper seemed confused. Banner scratched behind his ear a little.

“What’s wrong with your face?” Tony asked, pointing at the area near Loki’s eyes.

“There is NOTHING wrong with my face Stark.” Loki growled.

That appeared to be a sore spot with Loki. Tony’s first guess was vanity. But he saw the way Loki started flinching under their confusion. Yeah, beauty… or at least a certain form of physical appeal, was important to Loki. But not for vanity’s sake. It was as if he believed that his looks were the only thing that kept him up there… Up where Thor was, where he had respect.

“Seriously. What are you staring at?!” Loki hissed now.

“You’re uh… You’re blue.” Bruce muttered. “Around your eyes and nose.”

“And your eyes are all red.” Pepper said.

She and Tony seemed to be awed rather than disgusted, but Midgardians weren’t aware of the Jotun, of their reputation and skin.

“You must be getting tired brother… It appears your spells are wavering a little. Let me help you to bed.”

Loki seemed to pale for a second and the white scurried back into his skin, the blue was gone and the red went away as if it had never been there. With Loki aware the spells restored his façade easily. Thor smiled a little and put his hand on Loki’s neck.

“Just go to bed, you’ll have another day tomorrow and allies to help you with your work.”

After saying that Thor hoisted Loki up into both arms.

“Thor! No. Put me down. I am not a child anymore.”

Bruce smiled a little as Thor just put Loki over his shoulder.

“You are still light like one.” Thor laughed as he patted Loki’s waist.

“Goodnight friends, tomorrow we shall see you again.”

Loki let out a mild protest but ended up settling with just saying goodnight as well before Thor took him up to their rooms.

Thor gently set Loki down onto the perfect sheets of the room Loki had picked earlier.

“There. You looked so beat, I decided to just save you the stairs.”

Loki snorted a little.

“You oaf.”

But Thor could see he meant it with affection.

“I know Loki. But would you please allow me to share this room with you? It would put me at ease if I could see that you are calm and easy in your sleep.”

Loki sighed a little and unlaced his shoes. Midgardian footwear was very unsupportive, or at least these ones were. Once his shoes had hit the floor he pulled up his legs and sat back a little.

“Of course. Such a little thing… I wouldn’t deny you that.”

Thor looked up, he had expected protest about privacy or babying.

“I would feel easier too.” Loki answered as if he’d read his brother’s mind.

Thor smiled warmly and patted his cheek.

“Into bed with you then, before you start seeing blue around the nose again.”

Loki let out a small chuckle and stripped himself of the garments that Jane had borrowed him. When he’d left himself in only the undergarments he scooted up to the pillows and moved his legs under the blankets. Thor waited calmly until Loki was settled in and comfortable before he shrugged out of his own clothes. He closed the door and sat down, using the bedside light for some illumination as he gently took Loki’s healing arm in his hand.

“How does it feel today? Is it getting better?”

“Yes… With small steps. Don’t worry about it Thor.”

Loki turned on his side, his back to Thor because that was his good side.

“Thank you…” Loki muttered eventually.

“For joining you in this bed? You hardly have to thank me.”

“No. For showing that there are still people out there that are willing to care for me. I had lost that belief.”

Thor smiled and smoothed his hand over Loki’s hair on the back of his neck.

“You don’t need to thank me for that Loki. As your brother it will always be my job to make you feel loved. That I neglected to do so for centuries was my flaw.”

Loki only hummed in response.

“I guess we both have a few behavioural issues.”

Thor let out a loud snort.

“That is a way of stating it, isn’t it?”

“We sure must be a handful to mother and father… Now that you really think of it.”

Thor shook his head a little, a big grin on his face.

“Nonsense, we are angels compared to how Sif was as a little girl.”

“Still are.”

They both laughed a little and Loki turned on his back to look at Thor.

“I missed this.”

Thor turned his head to look into the bright green of his brother’s own.

“As have I.” he replied with a mellow smile. “But now, I swear to the Norns, you have to go to sleep or I will be forced to subdue you.”

Loki let out an amused snort and turned on his side.

“Yes mom.”

“Shut up Loki.” Thor said with a playful nudge.

The other didn’t reply to that anymore and closed his eyes again. The light against his eyelids left when Thor turned off the lamp and also settled beside him with a contented huff.

The silence wasn’t broken again for the rest of that night. At least… Not in their room.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised I am getting back on track with timely updates again. This chapter is longer than your average one, and we have some events happening again. Exciting :o I hope you like, and I'd as Always love to hear your opinion on this particular chapter again. Leave a review or a comment and I will see you again soon. :D

**Chapter 9: Pride beyond reason.**

 

The least favourite sound in Tony Stark’s opinion was that of alarms. They were so sharp and annoying. They were persistent too. He turned on his stomach.

“Jarvis. Turn off that bloody noise!!” He yelled when it still blared through his pillow.

“I’m afraid it’s meant to wake you sir. It is quite urgent.”

Tony sat up, quite the angry little human when he dragged out of bed with a huff. It was barely 8 in the morning. Tony quickly put on a robe, striped in red and gold, the colours of iron man of course, and he walked over to his computer which was still blaring and beaming light.

“What is it baby?” Tony yawned as he logged in.

Immediately he felt his brows crease together.

“Jarvis, this can’t be right. It’s the portal probes…”

“The data has been recorded by 3 separate probes sir and it has been verified. A space-portal has opened somewhere above New York.”

Tony rubbed his face.

“How many? And what kind?”

“The readings correspond strongly with the samples of the Chitauri from past year sir, and your probes have verified there is at least four vehicles with them present.”

Tony closed his computer and ran upstairs. He could not believe the balls on that Norse piece of shit. He would smash him to bits. Right in front of Thor if he had to. He threw open the door to the bedroom he had borrowed to the two gods. Loki was sitting at the side of bed, looking a bit startled to see Tony come in. He was fixing up bandages while Thor remained asleep, snoring like a peaceful bear in winter-sleep.

“Can I help you?” Loki asked when he saw Tony heaving his chest up and down with deep breaths.

“You. You incredible… Idiot! Son of a fucking bitch! I offer you my home, we choose to trust you. You get us all wrapped up in your sob-story. And not even a night in and you invite your friends in?!”

Loki frowned.

“Stark, you are speaking rubbish. I have no idea what you are speaking of.”

Tony growled and charged, startling Loki enough to jump up and suspend him in mid-air, frozen in his movement. Thor startled out of his sleep.

“Loki, man of iron, what is the meaning of this?”

“He attacked me!” Loki immediately defended, dropping Tony out of his suspension.

“Oh don’t you play your innocent baby card. You brought the Chitauri back onto Earth? How did you do that hm? Are you using my tower to channel your magic or is that fake cube of yours running down my systems for you to use?”

Loki got pale in the face. He seemed to go rigid even.

“They’re here?”

The lights flickered a bit and the sheets fluttered with an unknown breeze.

“Oh don’t pretend you did not know.”

Thor grabbed Loki’s shoulder.

“Brother.”

“It was not me. It was not me Thor.”

Tony rolled his eyes and scoffed.

“Oh sorry, my mistake. I’ll ask Bruce not to invite aliens over to smash. How dumb of me.”

“DO NOT MOCK ME!!” Loki bellowed, a sharp gust of air striking Tony in the face.

Thor’s hand tightened on Loki’s shoulder.

“I believe you Loki. I do.”

Tony fashioned his hair again. Loki looked positively panicked.

“He does not.”

Thor looked at Loki shortly.

“It’s fine. He will, we’ll explain.”

“We explained already, he doesn’t believe me. But that’s alright. I’ll make him believe me.”

Thor grabbed Loki tighter.

“No you do not have to prove yourself. Loki don’t.”

But he could not stop Loki’s form from slipping between his fingers as he disintegrated and left. He left and Thor had no idea where Loki had transported himself. Thor angrily turned to Tony then.

“Look at what you have done! You have scared him out of safety! If any harm befalls him I will have your head man of iron!!”

Tony set a few steps back.

“Or he tricked you after all and he is now with his buddies to plan another attack on New York.”

Thor had Tony by his collar faster than the other could yelp.

“You have not seen him like I have. Loki is afraid, he is in pain and he has been tortured for longer than a year. If he gets hurt, or worse… If anything happens to him at all you can count on a most painful death. Because no man, no creature, harms my brother. You will help me find him, and hope for your own sake that Loki is in good health when we do.”

“Can’t breathe.” Tony choked, his face puffed red from the lack of oxygen.

Thor set him down again with an angry huff and gave him a long look that made Tony feel even smaller compared to the huge Norse god.

“Fine, we’ll look for him, but if he proves to be working with them I will say ‘I told you so’. Because I did. And Loki is a manipulative little shit from what I remember from last time.”

Thor balled his fist.

“He is afraid and he was tortured into committing horrible crimes. He needs our help.”

Tony huffed but refrained from any other comment. It wasn’t too smart to get on Thor’s wrong side after all. He rose his hands in surrender and grumbled a bit. They could not further conversation between each other however because they were joined by a very bleary-eyed doctor Banner. The man was rubbing his eyes as he shuffled in with his flannel striped pyjamas.

“What the hell is all the racket about? It’s like… really early.”

He rubbed his eyes and yawned.

“You look angry you two…” Banner looked around. “And where is Loki?”

Thor huffed.

“Man of iron has scared Loki into thinking he needs to prove himself. He is out there on his own. And he is out to fight. Fight enemies when he is hardly in shape to even work on his project.”

Bruce looked at Tony.

“Jarvis picked up Chitauri signatures on the probes I installed after his stupid actions last year. He brought them here, and he has not changed a single bit.”

Bruce shook his head and sighed.

“Tony… I don’t believe for a single moment that Loki would get the Chitauri anywhere near.” He grabbed his glasses. “Loki is genuinely afraid. He is in utter and pure panic when it comes to them. If he went to fight them to prove you wrong he really wants your trust.”

Tony growled.

“Oh yeah, make me the bad guy here. Let’s just find that guy and get him here before he either gets killed or fucking enslaves humanity. Everyone happy.”

Thor made to pummel the little man but Bruce halted him.

“No, just let him go for it. Get dressed, come with us. We’ll find him.” Bruce assured. “Do you have any idea where Loki could have gone to?”

Thor sighed and shook his head. He didn’t know Midgard so well, let alone where Loki would be in it.

 

Loki felt hot with rage, and cold with fear, a mix of feelings that felt like fever. He was going to show that Stark that he was not the same anymore. He was going to shed that layer of distrust and manipulation. He was not that person, and he did not want to even seem that person anymore. But he was afraid. Out here where he did not know it. He had taken himself to something that brought him comfort. Books, as much of them as he could find. It had put him in an isle of the New York Public Library. The ring he had taken with him to Earth was his salvation now. Every gem held a different disguise he had once created, so he did not have to call upon his magic to guise him. He needed the magic for other purposes. The gem he’d activated gave him the form of a young man, late in his 20’s. With red hair, silver eyes, covered in tattoos. Someone that caught a look but that also made people look away again soon enough. He had once created this form on a small trip to Earth, some 60 years ago. So his clothing was a bit outdated, suspenders, slacks and a white button-down, which was fashionable back then. But he had caught glimpses last year that had told him this very look was reintroducing itself in Midgardian fashion.

He held his breath however when he first encountered a human. He was not afraid of them in particular. But if one recognized him because his ring was faulty then he would be crowded soon. This place called New York was teeming with humans, they were practically living in a pile here. But the girl just gave him a long look and walked away. Good, the spell was just fine. In his new form he dared to come out of the small isle between bookcases and take a look around. The place was in fact quite tasteful. After every so many rows of books there were tables, polished oaken with lamps on the corners that cast a friendly yellow light to aid your reading. The chairs looked old, also wooden, but with cushioned seats. There were higher walkways too, small staircases allowing you to move up a level and pass by balustrades to get a different book from the higher sections. Loki made his way through the arch that separated the room he was in from the larger halls.

The larger windows there poured in a white light over polished table-tops, set up in rows that were almost military in its precision. It was really quiet, people were just sitting there to read or make their papers for school or work. Loki shuffled through the long isle in the middle, which was marble. This place was pretty grand. He could even see his own foreign reflection in the surface. The smoothed back ginger hair, the silver eyes, the gleam of his piercings. It was an earthly form he rather enjoyed. Because by no means was he ever an invisible person. He stood out. And he held this form close to heart because just like him it was regarded with something between mockery and intrigue. And that was what he was used to. He knew that the Chitauri weren’t in plain sight. There was no panic after all and people were just minding their own business for now. He would have to use his magic to find those creepers. And he fully intended to get some pay-back into those nasty things. Given that everything was still normal it was probably a small party, which meant that they were restless and had started to scout. They were trying to find him to keep an eye on things. That also meant Odin’s protection was enough to keep them blind.

The only thing he wanted to know was how they got here. There was no portal, no Tesseract, no gate-way. At least not one that he had provided or knew about. Did that mean that someone else was working with them as well? Had they gotten another device in their possession that he did not know about? Or was there something else going on that he was not aware of? He did not like the idea. But he would need to find them first. He left the library behind, reminding himself that he would maybe go back there… With Banner perhaps, because he trusted the man. Outside he suddenly stopped halfway down the steps. He had never gotten onto the ground when he was here. And from this perspective he felt kind of small. The citadel of Asgard also had its towers. But this was different. Asgard had a few of its magnificent buildings, but it also had many street-level blocks and houses all around you so that you got a whole new sense of home when you were down there. But this city was made of huge sky-high steel and glass pillars, only separated by the network of pulsing veins that were roads. Loki actually felt quite tiny in comparison, and that did not often happen. Well, luckily he had magic, because finding anything here would be like searching for a needle in a hay-stack… A big, big hay-stack.

 

Thor paced as Tony was setting up his equipment in the lounge-room. Pepper had also gotten out of bed after Thor had started bellowing about Tony’s betrayal and attitude. She had managed to calm them by ordering Tony to get going on finding Loki. In each of their scenarios it was most important, either to protect Loki from harm or stop him from restarting his war. Tony had obeyed Pepper to Thor’s big surprise.

“How do you have power over him. I do not understand.” Thor said when Tony had gone upstairs to fetch a few things.

“Oh you know. I know what makes him tick. He needs a rough hand.”

She laughed a bit and then looked at him more seriously.

“But Thor, you should probably get at least a bit prepared that Loki could have tricked you. If he is right Tony will insist to rub it in your face.”

Thor merely smiled at her.

“Fine lady, Loki has not betrayed us and I am certain of that. He is not the man you have seen in this city a year ago. He is a fine man, and you will all know that.”

Tony let his things clatter onto the table as he started to set up a work-station. Bruce had taken it onto himself to make coffee for everyone to take away all the morning-moodiness. Pepper patted Thor’s shoulder then, deciding that she would not try to pry at his resolve, to just let the day speak for itself. She hoped though… She hoped that Loki was as Thor described, a repeat of last year would be painful, it would be horrible. Especially on Thor and maybe Banner too.

“Alright big guy. How are we going to find your brother. New York is pretty big. And chances are we miss him on cameras if he is not out on the street.”

“Can your machines not trace the signature of his magic?” Thor asked, annoyed with the primitive aperture here on Midgard.

“Uh. I would need something with his magic that I can read. So I can program my city probes to pick up that signal. Then I guess I could find him with that.”

Banner placed the mugs with fresh coffee on the large glass table. They were all still in pyjamas, Banner in a striped pair in purple and white. Tony still in his glorious iron man robe. Pepper had thrown on a t-shirt and a pair of old shorts. The only one who had barely made an effort was Thor. He was walking around in a pair of sweat-pants that Tony had ushered him to put on for common decency. Bruce brought Loki’s cube.

“He made it from scratch. His magic is all this thing consists of.”

Thor smiled. Bruce was standing behind him. The doctor cared for Loki. Tony took the cube Loki had made and let his scanners run different tests, radiation, different waves of sound and other vibrations. Thor paced, drinking his drink and looking out the windows as if he would see Loki walking somewhere.

“Oh brother, if only I had cared to learn magic like you had, I would find you among these thousands of men and bring you safely back to my side.”

 

Loki was slowly starting to regain his footing. He walked  away from the library and sat himself on a bench. It was highly uncomfortable.  It made his back-side cold and the surface made his muscles spring into a coil. But it was only for a moment. He leaned his head into his hands and closed them. He used his magic to walk to many ways at once. He was at every corner of this city, going through each door. He was in many places at once, and yet he was not even moving. And people asked him what was so extraordinary about practicing magic. He skipped through all the places before he had found the edge of town. A warehouse where the Chitauri held up. They were preparing a device. A bomb perhaps? Loki couldn’t really tell. But it seemed to be made for the purpose of damage and death, it at least did not seem any good. He opened his eyes again, hands coming off his face. In this disguise his arm injury was hidden, but it was there, protesting at every move he made too quickly. At least he knew where to go. He would prove to Thor’s allies that he was not their enemy. He was going to take away their doubt and he was going to make Thor rest easier. His brother was already doing enough. He would at least arrange that he did not need to keep convincing the men they needed for aid of his good heart. He owed that to him. He stood up then from the bench and started to leave. His feet felt oddly heavy. Fear seemed to weigh them down like lead. He was walking though, towards a little back-alley that was shady at best. Walking through the city would take him ages. And he did not trust those vehicles the humans used. They did not seem to stop for people all that much. Getting mauled over by one of their stupid rides would not add well to his list of current set-backs. So once he was in the alley he re-focused on where he had found the Chitauri. With a pull at his body he travelled to another side of the city. A small flutter of air whizzed by as he appeared on the spot again. The place the Chitauri held up in was a warehouse, at the more industrial part of town. He wasn’t alone here either. There were construction-workers repairing a building a few compounds away, people were loading and docking products in a warehouse that looked exactly the same. Cars would drive through. He was still staying in this form, definitely. He pulled up his collar a bit and looked at the building he had to be at. Well, time to prove himself once and for all. No time to be afraid. Only anger, only revenge.

 

“Ah hahahahaha I am a genius!” Tony exclaimed.

Thor, Bruce and Pepper had long abandoned the table and had left to the couch. Pepper had slumped back into sleep during the morning news and Bruce was just occasionally yawning and rubbing his eyes. Thor was alert, looking at the news for any sign of Loki. He would not rest until he could hug his brother to his chest again and tell him he was a bloody idiot before he would embrace him again and tell him that he loved him. So when Tony called he was the first to join him on his side.

“Have you found my brother?”

“Not yet, but I can trace his magic and then ping on a security camera on any building near it to look him up. So yes, I am a bloody genius.”

Thor sighed in relief.

“Then please put your device to use man of iron, my brother must be returned to me soon as possible.”

Tony huffed a little. He had probably expected a bit more praise for his work Thor suspected.

Without any more protest however Tony let his trace run, searching for the signature of Loki’s work.

“I can only pick it up if he actually uses magic I gotta warn you.”

Thor shook his head.

“Loki is always using magic. Smaller spells and enchantments, to heal his arm and to maintain his complexion. It’s completely entwined with his life.”

Tony muttered a bit and waited for the different probes to pick up  the signal. Part of him wanted to be right, he simply thought it was too big a coincidence that the Chitauri were here the very moment Loki got settled in. But then again, would Loki make it so easy for him to pick up? And if it was true they would once again verge on a war like last year… And Tony was not so sure that they could pull off another victory. Part of him therefore also wanted Thor to be right about his brother. It would not be ideal, but it would be a better scenario at least. Loki was the kind of guy that could make his lies as convincing as his truths. But at this moment they all sort of gave him the benefit of the doubt, and hopefully he would come out of that trial-period clean. A soft beep announced that one of the probes had picked up Loki’s activity. Tony had put a lot of signal probes all over the city, his paranoia had pretty much pushed him into it. Thanks to it though he now had a pretty fine grid to search for any form of pre-programmed signals he wanted to pick up. At that moment Banner also joined them at the table.

“You found him?”

Pepper was still on the couch, they had gently set her down when she had fallen asleep at some point. Tony worked on his program and isolated the location.

“He’s somewhere at the Industrial Park.” He muttered, pulling up the security cameras in the neighbourhood. There were 8 of them and he pulled them up on a screen nearby.

“If you see him feel free to say it.”

All three they bent over to study the people. It was a pretty busy area, people going back and forth for construction, deliveries, or simply to pick stuff up. How the hell had nobody even noticed that Norse maniac yet?

“Him.” Thor suddenly exclaimed, his thick finger pointing out a man from the crowd. “I have seen that disguise of his before.”

Tony narrowed his eyes and looked up close. The guy was about Loki’s age and shared his pale skin, but that was just about all they had in common. He was tattooed quite heavily, his arms covered and ink also painting the skin above his collar. His clothes were very much that vintage come back to popular style that Tony hated because he just could not pull it off himself. White shirt, suspenders and slacks. His hair wasn’t just ginger it was orange, bright orange red, eyes grey. Cool clinical grey.

“That is Loki…” Bruce said. “I really do not see it.”

Thor laughed.

“Of course you do not recognize him. What a bad spell of disguise it would be if you still saw him as the man he really is. He once made this skin to pick me up from an escapade with a young maiden that had put me in a fine share of trouble. I know it’s Loki.”

And when he saw the ring Loki used to keep his many skins in he knew for certain.

“We should go, before something bad happens to him.” Thor said.

Tony stared for a while longer before the man that Thor had pointed out as Loki entered one of the warehouses on the compound.

“Right. Let’s go.”

He clicked away the screen and stood up.

“Jarvis, prepare the suit.”

With the commotion of everyone getting up and around Pepper woke up again with a small gasp.

“Oh… Crap.” She quickly composed herself again and stood up. “You found him?”

Thor nodded.

“Indeed we have Miss Potts. We shall now go on a mission to bring him back safely.”

 Pepper snorted and patted Thor’s bicep.

“I’ll make something to eat when you get back. Alright?”

Thor gave her a nod and went to his borrowed bed-room to retrieve Mjolnir. He could summon it of course, but that would probably destroy a few things in Stark’s house and he could guess there would be no appreciation for hammer-shaped holes in Tony’s walls or ceiling. 

Once he had retrieved it his own reliable battle-armour returned to him, ready for trouble if he would be given any. He let his muscles roll and let out a deep sigh.

“You are really worried about him… More so than Tony realized.”

It was Bruce that had walked in without Thor realizing.

“You haven’t seen him in the state he was when it had all just happened to him. He was ruined.”

“I got to see the effects. And the arm. I understand.”

“Perhaps, partially. Loki is a very strong person Dr. Banner. For him to come into the state you have seen him in is a very deep low he has never stooped to before. Never, when you corner him he usually responds in violence or manages to outwit you. But he was afraid of me, of all of us.”

Banner nodded and softly hushed Thor.

“Easy now Thor, I understand.”

“Sirs, mr Stark has requested you meet him on the terrace so you can leave.”

Thor patted Bruce’s shoulder.

“Friend Banner, I hope you will never forget my gratitude for how you treat my brother. My deepest thanks.”

Bruce smiled a bit and shrugged.

“It’s no problem honestly. Loki is like looking in a mirror for me sometimes… On how I could have ended up with the wrong decisions, with the wrong people around me. He just makes me want to pull him through that mirror towards the good side I have ended up.”

Thor inclined his head.

“I think that is the best way somebody has looked at Loki’s person I have heard.”

They concluded their conversation with that and went to join Tony on the terrace. He was already in full suit, the mask reclined to face the other two.

“Right, let’s try not to attract too much attention. I’ll fly ahead with Bruce, and Thor you should follow, low profile, I’ll get us into that building without mass-hysteria. In there, get your little brother, kick some alien ass and get home again in time for Pepper’s sandwiches.”

Thor nodded and grabbed onto Mjolnir tighter. Tony put the mask on and sighed.

“It always sounds so simple when it’s just the plan…”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a horrible person and I deserve to be booed. I never wanted to make everyone wait this long and I am sincerely sorry.

Chapter 10: Face-off.

 

Thor was oddly calm once they had headed away. Somehow the thrill of battle and the promise of a fight made his worries seem like minor issues. He knew that he could help Loki by doing something, by standing by his side. Now, he only cared about speed, hurry, faster and faster. He needed to be there. Every second wasted to catch a breath could be a second too much. Tony could not follow him at the same speed, it asked too much of his suit, but Thor would see him there, he would be able to hold off any enemies long enough. He touched down on the grounds of the industrial park, just remembering Tony’s warning about catching attention so that he could land between some steel plates. He couldn’t see Loki. He was inside somewhere already. Norns forbid he would be too late, not again.

 

Loki was quiet when he snuck into the building that held the Chitauri. He was not like Thor, barging in with his powers blazing, it wouldn’t do. He needed to know things first. How many were there? How did they get here? And what was the device he had seen before? He moved slowly, his back close to the wall. The warehouse was relatively empty, there were a few old tables and workspaces, the odd larger compartment of things that the humans had built here once. The place was grim. Loki did not like it here at all, it was just so dark and cold. He heard them, the Chitauri. He could hear the noises they made to communicate. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end with memories. He grit his teeth against it. No, he would not be afraid. This was his chance to take back his own strength. To show them that he was not just the cowering little prince. Thor, Thor’s friends, the Chitauri: They would all know it. He rounded a corner, hiding himself behind the old working-bench nearby. There were about 8 of them, Chitauri foot folk. They were  working on the device, a machine that had the size of a small car. He did not trust the look of it. It looked like a canon, but there was no ammo nearby, no crates or energy tubes. If it was something that had to fire, they were not planning on doing so soon. Was that a good thing? He was not so sure yet.

He rounded the corner and snuck to a closer bench. They were making it ready for something anyway, the mechanics were functioning. Loki had to know what they were doing. He sighed and looked to a nearby door before he projected the image of a man there, a Midgardian man, simple and plain, just enough for the Chitauri to spot. He waited for one of them to look up before he made his projection run off as if he had been spotted. The Chitauri took the bait, gathering their weapons and chasing after the image that had fled down the hallway. Loki waited for a while before he walked towards the device. It was indeed huge. But he could not find anything it would have to fire. He looked behind him for a moment more before he pried off one of the plates to look inside. For a while he was just looking at wires until he could see the tubes. They were significant, made of glass. He parted the wires and looked at the runes that were carved in their holders. These were mage-runes. The device was not to fire, it was to drain. They had made it to collect the power from the Tesseract to turn it into a weapon. He set his jaw tightly. Oh that was not good at all. He made to get up and turned. He met the faces of 6 Chitauri, they had already surrounded him. He instinctively reached for the knives he usually carried with him, but he did not have anything. He was pretty sure they recognized him even through his disguise. They were not stupid. One lunged forward and he shot a bolt of his magic at it, making it screech in pain. He made ready to do the same to the rest, but any plans went lost when one of them hit him hard enough on the head to make him stumble, another hit and he fell over forward, vision dimming instantly. One of them had snuck up behind him. He really was out of his depth. Normally he would have sensed them, and a simple hit to the head wouldn’t have fazed him so much. But he was not yet in shape, not as he should be, not like he usually was.

 

When Loki woke up again he was relieved not to be in tremendous pain. His arm pulsed, quite horribly too.  

“Loki?” He heard. “Can you hear us?”

That was Banner’s voice. There was some shuffling.

“Brother, please wake again. Are you well?” Thor asked.

Loki grunted then and opened his eyes. He was warm though, fever? He was looking into a bright set of lights, white almost.

“Jarvis, dim the light above his head.” Tony immediately ordered.

“His eyes are really creepy like that.” Pepper’s voice muttered.

Loki shook his head, back in Stark Tower. He was safe. Thor must have found him. He waited for his vision to focus and saw that they were all there, Bruce, Thor, Pepper, Stark… And they all sported the same concerned gaze. Loki hummed and slowly brought up his hand to rub in his eyes. But as he did he saw a flare of blue rather than soft pink. He gasped and shot up. His entire skin, he was Jotun.

“Loki, easy.” Thor immediately said, putting a hand on Loki’s shoulder. He was wearing gloves, the rest was also dressed warmly, sweaters and scarves, Loki got a hunch that the temperature here was kept low by Stark to favour him.

“What happened to me?” Loki hissed.

“We hoped you could tell us. When we found you the Chitauri had fired this weapon at you, Thor thought you were dead.” Bruce explained, carefully taking Loki’s arm.

“They used their device on me…” Loki cursed. “They took my magic.”

Thor squeezed his shoulder harder.

“They… They can’t do that. Magic is part of you, they can’t just take that right? It’s-”

“You think I look like THIS for bloody good fun?”

This form that he despised so much. Thor frowned and knelt in front of him.

“What do we do? Can I help you? Do anything?”

Loki looked at Thor’s face and then at Banner who finished the new wrap on his broken arm, assuring it was still fine.

“I will have to wait. The device cannot destroy the paths of Seiðr in me. But the reservoirs they made for me are completely empty and drained now. It will take weeks, at least two, before they are back on track. It will be at least two or three more DAYS before I can even turn my skin back to normal.”

He looked at the ring he used for his disguises, the gems were all cracked like cheap glass, the magic gone. He put his hands over his face and took a few deep breaths, feeling an anger rise up just as strong as a fear. He needed his magic. He was NOTHING without it, hopeless, small and weak.

“May we speak alone?” Thor asked then to his friends.

They were staring and he just knew that Loki only felt more pressured if they were there. One by one they left, glad to return to the warmer comfort of the rest of the tower. Loki knew that Thor was cold too, his breath came out in puffs of steam and he rubbed his arms. But this was nothing compared to their first encounter in Jotunheim. Thor pulled a chair close. Loki had been on a table, but a cushioned one, that would keep him comfortable.

“Stark informed me that he made these rooms for when he was still sick with that device that kept the shrapnel away from his heart. It’s old technology he was talking about. Primitive. But the bottom line was that you could be looked at here without involving Midgard’s hospitals.”

Loki nodded, but it was only half-heartedly.

“We need to get that device and destroy it. They made it to drain and harness the power of the Tesseract, I’m almost sure of it. If they manage to do so, they could control the strength of it into a weapon, a beam. The focused devastation can take planets apart with a good shot.”

“And we will go do that… But Loki, brother… You need me first. Is there anything I can do? Anything I can retrieve for you to help your recovery?”

Loki huffed and shook his head, his hands curling around the table. He looked at his bare feet, protruding from under the sweat-pants that Stark had most likely provided for him.

“There is nothing. It’s something my body has to make of its own.”

He slammed his hand down.

“Another setback! It’s like I cannot do a single damn thing right anymore!”

Thor winced a little and reached out for Loki.

“You are in a bad position. But you are not alone Loki. You have us. Stark has apologized for his behaviour too. You have a team, you have people to help you. Please, don’t give up your hopes.”

Loki sighed and smiled thinly.

“You always insist on making things look light again.”

Thor leaned his elbows on his knees and looked into Loki’s eyes, blood-red and shimmering with tears.

“And you cry and feel lost so quickly.” He chuckled and brushed a hand through his brother’s hair.

“Experience I suppose.” Loki sniffed a little, smiling through his upcoming tears.

“Nonsense, come… Will you be able to join us for a meal? You will probably recover much better if you eat and sleep well.”

Loki wiped at his eyes and laughed a little.

“Yeah. I will be right with you, let me find a shirt so I don’t frostbite people.”

Loki brushed off his brother’s hands then and came to his feet.

“You can go ahead, I’m sure I’ll be able to find my way there.”

Thor was about to protest and say that it was no trouble for him to wait up and walk with Loki, but he quickly came to realise that Loki himself rather see him there later.

“Do not take too long then, I’d have to come retrieve you.”

Loki snorted a little and traced one of the Jotun lines that took up his shoulder.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Thor nodded and left Loki to his own devices then. He could understand that Loki would feel a need for some privacy, after all, he had only just woken up after being cornered. He had been lucky that Thor and the rest were on time. Thor grit his teeth a bit. If he had lingered any longer, who knows what state Loki could have been in. Or worse, he could have been gone, taken somewhere. On the other hand, if he had just been quicker, Loki wouldn’t have lost his magic. He took the elevator back to the lounge room where the others had gathered, the same room where they had eaten before and enjoyed conversation. The rest was already there, sort of huddled by the coffee-table and looking at Thor quite anxiously.

“Is it permanent?” Banner asked. “The blue state… Because, he seems to hold quite a hatred to it.”

“No. It’s not permanent. 2 days, Loki said. It’s his true state… But he decided to deny this. It’s a difficult thing for outsiders to grasp.”

Loki joined them shortly after. He had put on a simple shirt, long-sleeved and soft. Together with the baggy pants that Pepper had gotten for him earlier, Loki looked a lot less intimidating. He looked skinny and even a bit small.

“You want anything?” Thor immediately asked.

“Ice. It’s so warm out here.”

Tony stood and came back with a jacket instead that could regulate temperatures.

“I use it under the suit sometimes, to keep me warm, but it can also keep you cold so…”

He handed it over and sighed a bit.

“For what it’s worth I apologize that I put you in that position. I was wrong. But you really, really messed with my head  with the shit you pulled in New York- I could not trust you, I could not bring myself to it until I saw it.”

Loki hummed and pulled the fabric over his shoulders, cooling down at least a bit now.

“It’s all well.”  He just muttered.

“Hungry?” Pepper asked instead, bringing out the food she had cooked. “You will recover better when you eat well.”

Loki put his head in his hands and sighed deeply, not looking at any of them.

“To be honest… I just really want to be alone at this moment.”

They looked between each other.

“Are you angry with us brother?” Thor asked.

“No… But I have been talked to, pushed and pulled at from every side these past days. Good intentions, bad intentions. Encouragements, warnings, conversations, advices everywhere… I just want to be alone for a moment… Before I completely lose my head again.”

He stood up from the table and took the plate that Pepper had handed him.

“I’ll lower the temperatures in your room for your own comfort then.” Tony said.

Loki only nodded and walked away, leaving the rest alone at the table to eat in silence.

“Should we be worried now?” Pepper asked Bruce then, slightly worried.

“No. You shouldn’t. In fact, this is a very healthy reaction. It means he is processing things and that he is willing to take the time to let it settle. I say you best leave him to it, he might be gloomy and he would not want to be disturbed. But I am confident he would come out of it much more secure.”

He looked at Thor then and smiled thinly.

“All you can do for now my friend is sit back and wait… You will have to accept that you simply cannot always do something for him. And he would want you to trust him to handle himself too.”

Thor looked up the stairs and smiled.

“Loki has always been keen on his time alone. I only think it’s for the better that he took it for himself. It means he is starting to gain a certain confidence again.”

Tony frowned but said nothing of it.

“Well… At least this is quite an eventful slumber party, one could say.”


End file.
